Choosing my image:

I wanted to give myself some time to decide on an image, so began by photographing my back garden from different angles trying to think about what might make a good image. I wasn’t too sure about the look I was getting/how I would turn the photo’s into linocuts. They all seem quite busy images and I wasn’t sure how I’d simplify them…

 

I did have a go at one design based on my back garden:

However I felt that this would be too busy an image to work as a Print, and too ambitious for me to carry off for a first attempt at a proper linocut print.

So I decided I’d try some still life arrangements with some Glass bottles that I liked and a handful of flowers from my back garden. I thought arranging the bottles on a rug that had a pattern might be interesting and add something to the arrangement. I also tried to get some stronger shadows by using a small light behind the arrangement. I took a few photo’s for reference.

In attempt to use different mediums in my sketchbook I did a series of studies on this arrangement using a Charcoal Pencil , Oil Pastels, Fine Black Pen, Pencil.

 

 

Whilst I think these are okay in terms of technique I wasn’t happy that these sketches would work well as lino cuts , so wanted to move on to another subject. I wanted to try and capture something from my home that meant something to me but that wasn’t too complex, I started to draw a wooden box we have on our wall which contains objects that remind us of moments in our life. Like keepsakes from friends wedding etc…

The pencil drawings I drew from these are below:

Again I struggled to simplify this, I probably could have if I’d given myself more time. Instead I looked for different inspiration by looking outside my front window. Looking out my front window I could see the house opposite which was half framed by the bush in my front garden.

I liked this view so grabbed a black felt pen and drew it. 

I knew afterwards as I looked at this that it was too tricky for me to do well as a single colour lino print, simply because the details were very small and I didn’t think I had enough practice with the lino cutting tools to do it!

So I drew a simplified version, taking away the lines on the windows and the drain pipes, and changed the sky.

 

Looking at this I felt the balance between white and black was fairly good, so this would work as a Print.