The end of the Black Path

Black Path II. A linocut printed in four colours on 300gsm Fabriano 5 HP in an edition of ten. Image area approximately 210mm x 300mm. £150.00.

Black Path II. Finally finished. As always I could have gone on and added more colours but printing four colours was the aim so with a great display of self-control I stopped at four printings: yellow, dark grey two pale greys and a hand coloured Jack Russell Terrier. No clever blending and tapering of colours this time just simple slabs of colour from the linoblocks. As an experiment in block printing it has been an interesting exercise and I particularly liked the sulphurous yellow, a colour that used to hang in a haze over the Teesside industrial landscape of steel and chemical works and that’s why the rest of the North East called the people who came from Teesside ‘Smoggies’. Now I’m back to the same old question, what next? Inevitably the answer to that troublesome question is ‘I haven’t a clue’ but it will probably be a subject based on the West Norfolk landscape. Meanwhile I think it’s time for a beer to oil the creative cogs.