more about shells

two shells (photograph)

Regular readers of this blog may recall that I spent my Saturday afternoons during Herts Open Studios drawing or painting a couple of seashells in different media.  For the last session I decided to produce a reduction linocut, and duly set to cutting my printing plate ready for the first pull. 

linocut printing plate

 For practical reasons, the inking and the remainder of the cutting had to be done at home.  One of the shells had a gold-coloured lining, so I decided to keep that in, hoping that the first layer of gold metallic ink would lend a warm feel to the finished print.   The second layer of ink was problematic - I wasted quite a lot of ink trying to produce the pearly pink I wanted - I eventually managed to achieve it using a mixture of Titanium White, metallic copper and some Schminke Pearliser.

the first two layers - gold and pearly pink

For the third and final layer I mixed some cyan and Titanium White, to represent the sea.  It was great fun to make some reduction linocuts, as I haven't done any reductions for a while, and I was pleased with the result - the registration is probably the neatest I've ever done!

sea shells - the finished print

So now that really is Open Studios finished for another year.  Many thanks to everyone who came to see us - we had a wonderful response to our exhibition and really enjoyed meeting you all.  Here's to 2013!