Mostly I work with human figures but now and again, for a bit of light relief I use animals as my subjects, usually cats because they have enslaved me and I get plenty of practice drawing them. This is a small lino block print I did of Sparta. It’s a reduction block print, a technique that printmaker’s often call the suicide method because you cut all the colours from the same block which destroys the block in the process. If something goes wrong, you can’t go back and redo it. I’ve used three oil colours on this on top of a creamy coloured Zercoll 145 gsm paper.
Sparta is a small tortoiseshell [calico] cat who specialises in doing high fives, being cute and wholesale murder. She also likes to dump dead [and sometimes not dead] animals on top of me when I’m asleep in bed in the early hours of the morning and sitting on the stairs and smacking people in the head when they walk past. And biting my toes. And sneaking into bed on cold nights and sticking her icy paws in the middle of my back. And persuading local pensioners to spend their pittances on her. Maybe it’s my fault for calling her Sparta. Perhaps I should have called her Tiddles. Or Fluffy. Whoever heard of a serial killer called Fluffy?
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Sparta looks very cute. I have two calico sisters, Matisse and Penelope, and they enjoy meowing at all hours of the night. Apparently calico’s are the most vocal cat there is. Thanks for following my blog. I really like your work.
Drew
Thanks Drew. In Britain, tortoiseshell cats are affectionately known as naughty torties 🙂
Interesting to hear you put your images through photoshop first. I just started using it aid value separation for reduction screen printing and reduction block prints. Lovely image you captured of Sparta!
Thanks. Photoshop speeds up the colour separation process but I still work into them with some drawing before I decide on the final image 🙂
Love this print–any tips on working reductive? Do you work from an original drawing, and then code the areas of color? Been a while since I did this technique…
I worked from a digital photo that I put through Filter; Artistic; Cutout on Adobe Photoshop, which filtered it down into blocks of colour. Then I printed it out and did some drawing on top of it, traced it onto a block and began by cutting away the lightest colour, which was the paper underneath, then the next lightest and so on. This is 3 colours printed onto cream. Hope that helps 🙂
Hey Rosie…Sparta sounds like she has a vibrant personality. Her volatile nature matches her stunning lino print. Loved it!
Thanks Rayya. She’s a very vibrant little cat all right lol. A few minutes after I posted this last night, she ran in with a little mouse and threw the poor thing under the table. Husb managed to capture it and put it in the garden and we kept Sparta in all night. She was in a proper strop!
very nice.
Thanks Hansi 🙂