A North East Industrial Print, ‘Somewhere in Cleveland’

Somewhere in Cleveland. A linocut printed in nine colours, four colours from blocks, one colour by monoprint and four colours by stencil in a variable edition of ten. 215mm x 300mm.

The experimental print is finished at last. The cutting of the block was direct with no drawing the basic image up, just using the cutting tool as the ‘pencil’. The print has four passes from the lino blocks, one colour from a mono print and four more printed with stencils, so it’s fair to say that this print was definitely experimental. There was a lot of time spent cutting the block that was used for the detailed black printing, actually it wasn’t black it was Paynes Grey, and that block also formed the key for the registration. All in all I’m reasonably pleased with the approach and use of a new set of printing techniques, new for me anyway, and I feel it’s an approach that is well worth developing further. Perhaps even into woodcuts, not for the purists but who cares what they like and don’t like? The original image inspiration for this print came from an old sketchbook that dates back to when I was at art school in the mid sixties, probably 1964 or 1965. Anyway, if I was home from Newcastle and my parents were heading for the seaside I’d get them to drop me off and set off walking, stopping to draw, have a pint and a sandwich and meet them somewhere along a selected road three or four hours later as they returned from wherever they’d been, probably to a fish and chip shop in Whitby. However none of that solves where this set of buildings were located so it’s a bit of a North East mystery tour.