After a lot of cutting the linocut has reached the first proof stage. At the outset rather than carefully draw out the image I quickly drew up the proposed cut in pen and ink to allow me me plenty of leeway when I’m cutting, in fact I’m almost using the gouges and cutters like a pencil or pen and cutting in a very quick ‘sketch-like’ manner. If something goes wrong as you are cutting just adapt the cut and if unexpected good things happen, well you store those items in the memory bank to draw on later. I’ll keep nibbling away at this block until I’m ready to print the final colour but now to cut the first of the other two or three colours and start the process of printing, so watch this space.
John Richardson Lino Prints 