Category Archives: At Home

The Corn Flour Hack

I’ve seen a few printmakers using this hack on social media to see if their lino block is ready to print. It saves doing a proof print and getting the block inky. I sprinkled cornflour onto the block and scraped it across the lino with a business card (see below) to get the cornflour intoContinue reading “The Corn Flour Hack”

#Caturday Archives: 34

This #Caturday Saturday I’ve gone back almost 11 years to January 2015 and some pen and pencil sketches I made of the late, great Bobbit, a rather curmudgeonly calico cat.

The Cornflour Trick!

I’ve seen this trick on social media, using cornflour to take a look at a carved lino block, to see if it’s ready or needs more cutting. This is the first time I’ve tried it and it works! Yeah! I can see one or two bits on the cat block where I might do aContinue reading “The Cornflour Trick!”

Winter Cat

I’ve got a community arts teaching session coming up this week, we’ll be doing Xmas / Winter-themed lino cuts. I’m getting one prepared in advance, I’ve drawn the design onto a piece of traditional grey lino, ready to cut. This traditional material is made from linseed oil, pine resin and wood flour onto a juteContinue reading “Winter Cat”

#Caturday Archives: 32

It seems I was doing a lot of digital drawings of SpartaPuss back in December 2014. She’s a five year old here. I’ve drawn her with a free Markers app onto my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet. I liked that app very much but there came a point where I lost interest in digital drawingContinue reading “#Caturday Archives: 32”

#Caturday Saturday

I carried on with this little cat piece, using  Derwent Aquatone watercolour sticks onto a heavy watercolour paper with Escoda Versátil brushes. The cat shapes are from a stencil I cut of our little Bill the rescue cat some time ago. This is the first thing I’ve done with the Aquatone sticks and I’m getting usedContinue reading “#Caturday Saturday”

Reusing Sweet Papers

Today I did a bit of preparation for printing. It’s a technique called chine collé, where you put colour into a print using pieces of fine paper (tissue, mulberry etc…) or foils. I used the polished wooden spoon to burnish the foils – they’re recycled from sweets and biscuits so they’re crinkly and I wantContinue reading “Reusing Sweet Papers”

#Caturday Archives: 31

December 2014 was a month of digitally drawn cats. Here’s Sparta Puss, aged 5 drawn with a free Markers app onto my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet. I liked that app, it helped my drawings to be very free.

Scrapings!

I did a bit of painting today, using Liquitex Heavy Body onto a canvas board and I had little bits of paint left over. It’s very good paint, I didn’t want to waste it so I scraped it onto a small stretched canvas with a palette knife. Instant abstraction. It looks a bit spidery toContinue reading “Scrapings!”