Pardalote on a Wire – Woodcut

‘Pardolote on a wire’ Linocut 260 x 360 mm Aug 13

I revisited my Pardelote linocut and redid it as a larger woodcut.  Really happy with how it worked out, now I have more idea of how this medium works.  I was able to add more detail into the background while still keeping the simplicity of the composition.  It was much harder to cut in wood and I had trouble with bits chipping off, though super glue helped to save his leg!

I will be adding colour to some of the prints, but I have such a busy month it may not be till September.  Here is the original drawing and the first print just for comparison.

Spotted Pardelote Lino Design

Pardalote Two colour print May 2013

This time I remembered to flip the design before transferring it onto the block.  See learning has occured.

Carving the Pardalote

Karen

Blue Wren

Blue Wren Woodcut

This is my first ever woodcut, a little blue wren, sitting on an old fence post singing his heart out in the morning sun.  There was a family of blue wrens that lived on our property and spent the day ruffling through the gardens looking for tasty treats to eat.  They would come and watch you garden and sing and cheep away, such lovely companions.

This is the last print I did for my first relief printing class and it was a two colour wood cut.  This time instead of reduction we did a two plate print.  Again we had no choice in the second colour so not the colour I would have chosen.  But I see this as a draft for the second lot of prints that I am currently working on.  A short series of the birds that used to visit us on the property I used to live on in Castlemaine.

Blue Wren Woodcut

I enjoyed using the wood and really liked how the texture worked on the stump.  Lots to think about in how to use the grain of the wood in future work.  The wood also smells better than the lino.

Karen

Spotted Pardelote Linocut

Pardalote Two colour print

Here is my second linocut.  It is a Spotted Pardelote, which is a tiny finch like bird that used to nest in the banks on our property near Castlemaine.  They are lovely little birds.  The colours are not right, but as this is only a practice piece while learning the techniques we didn’t have a choice of colour.

Pardalote print Red

This is what is called a reduction print.  You carve out all the areas that you want to leave white (or the colour of the paper) then print with your next colour, in this case red.  Then you carve out the areas that you want red and print with your next colour, in this case black.  You can keep printing as many colours you like, but two was enough for our experiment.

I was really happy with how the bird turned out and can’t wait to do another one of this image with the right colouring.  I think a woodcut.

Karen