It’s the first day of my printmaking course tomorrow, and I need a picture to cut into lino and print. I haven’t done a linocut since I was at school, so I don’t know what sort of pictures work best. I considered using a classic fashion photo, like this one by Louise Dahl-Wolfe. I loved the lines on the dress, and thought they might work well in a linocut.
So I put the photo on my lightbox and traced a few lines, but then got confused: do I draw lines for the white bits or the dark bits? If the lines represent the bits to gouge out then it’s the white bits. I kept getting it wrong, though, and decided it wouldn’t work anyway. The hat would look like a strange, beak-shaped head. It’s a shame, because I think the dress might have worked.
Then I realised that putting layout paper on the photo created some interesting effects. You could curve the paper to fade the photo in or out, crumple it to add texture, and glue it to key areas so that part shows through whilst the rest is distorted. You could also extend the picture by drawing on the layout paper or adding objects under it. I need to explore all this!
Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to print out other photos to try. Perhaps Edward Weston’s photo of a lettuce leaf, or his photo of an onion.
Edward Weston’s is the interesting one, on the left. I liked the straggly roots on my onions, though, so I might combine Weston’s leaves with my onion bulbs, into a fantastical onion chimera.