Lino Cut Printing - New Creative Outlet?

Finding Alternative Art Outlets That I Can Do

---

Wobbly Hand Friendly Creativity?

One of the reasons I stopped working on my pencil and pen drawings was the frustration I had over my ‘wobbly hand’ issue. My stroke had left me with a weakened and unpredictable right hand which had something of a mind of its own.

This was particularly notable when trying to create line drawings. It wasn’t so much that I was not able to find work around strategies for dealing with my errant hand, it was the upshot of precise lines going astray during a - until that point - nicely drawn piece.

Above: My pen and ink sketch of the Angel pub - Scarborough- back when my hand was not as shaky as it is now. With time and patience I was able to render a passable drawing (though that changed day to day and became harder over time). Eventually, taking on commissions like this became far too problematic and rather than make promises that I could not keep I stopped doing them.

One of the solutions was to s…l…o…w down which did solve some of the problems but then added fatigue to the mix as projects then became very, very long drawn out sessions. And it’s very hard to force oneself to stop and start and stop and start creative sessions when you are ‘in the mood’ to create.

Finally, one additional thing I noticed was that the more I had to concentrate the more apt I was to bring on a hand spasm, the only remedy for was to stop and rest a good while - which broke my train of creative thought. All in all, it started to get very aggravating and upsetting to the point where I could no longer ENJOY a creative drawing session and got quite anxious when I tried (which brought on a stress induced wobbly hand spasim). It was a kind of vicious circle.

So, Why Lino Cutting? Isn’t That Just As Stressful?

One of the key issues about drawing was EXPECTATIONS. I have always drawn and always thought that I was moderately good at it - I *expect* a certain standard of creative output and got very depressed when I did not attain my own expectations.

Above: Sadly , the days when I could produce even mediocre quality of artwork came to an end. I could no longer produce the precise drawing technique that I enjoyed and resorted to the 'loose' pen and ink style that masked my 'wobbly' hand! But, even this became eratic.

Lino cut printing - on the other hand - is a completely new and unexplored creative outlet, I do not have the same level of expectations about what I might be able to achieve, especially as I have to learn completely new techniques. In a funny way I almost accept that I will not be able to create something which I would judge to be ‘GOOD’…(In the beginning.) And this s a very relaxing attitude. Very freeing.

Above: My first attempt at a lino cut. I am attending a workshop at The North Yorks Arts School (Scarborough) but with no experience in this medium and no idea how to go about designing an image suitable for it I opted to cut a design I downloaded that seemed like it was simple enough for a beginner! At this point I am really only learning how to use the tools!

There will be time to hone my skill later, once I have learnt the fundamentals.

What Are My Goals With This New Craft?

While it’s always hard to judge in what direction a new discipline will lead you - whether you will have any talent or if you will find your own particular style - it’s hard not to have some vague ideas about what you might like to be able to do.

I did a little thinking before my first workshop session and while I decided that my first attempt should be something very simple - a design that was proven to work (particularly for the beginner) - and certainly noting too ambitious. So, I looked up some readily available template designs of a very basic level of complexity and collected a selection of these pieces to take along with me…

However, my mind was busy concocting a way in which I could introduce my own stylistic preferences into this new technique. I’d like to continue along the path that I started with my pen and ink style of line drawings - particularly with the architectural subjects based on old Scarborough.

So, I started to work on converting a couple of my existing pen drawings into a style suitable for Lino cutting…

Above: I asked Window's Copilot (like ChatGTP) to take one of my pen & ink drawings (left) and turn it into a lino block print style of artwork. In this way I could study how light and shadow were interpreted as lino prints and how I might handle shading effects.

It would be nice to pick up again - thematically - from where I left off but I knew that there would have to be some modifications to make my ideas work in the Lino print medium. But without any experience of designing Lino prints and understanding how to create black and white ‘block print’ compositions (as yet) I decided to ‘cheat’ a bit and used ChatGPT to convert my drawings into ‘Lino print style’ images.

In doing this I could then study how my ideas would translate into this print medium and then - hopefully - understand how I might create wholly new compositions that might work as long prints in the future.

Above: As much as I liked this AI conversion of one of my 'Gothic Scarborough' series of drawings the complexity and level of detail in this particular rendition is way above my level of experience! But it did give me some hints about how I might do different styles of shading in lino cut compositions.

It’s very interesting t compare my drawn original works to the print style versions created by Chat GPT. My intention here is to try recreating these conversions into proper Lino print while I learn the technical technique of cutting Lino designs. Hopefully as I gain experience doing this I will begin to understand how I produce my own original print designs.

The Next Step

So, so far I have done my very first lino cut - my introduction at a local workshop - and I am following this by creating a print based on a conversion from one of my drawings (so I can work out how I might design my own works in the future). And so next I will be trying to put into practice what I have learned from these ChatGPT conversions...

Above: Another 'AI' conversion/translation of one of my sketches into a faux-lino print. This is really useful as it gives me a hint of how I might approach a composition when it comes to my producing a wholly original lino print design.

It's a bit difference from my pen and ink style of drawing where - put simply - my major concern was *light* and how to indicate *shade* using my medium. But with lino cutting I feel like it's almost reversed in a way, where instead I am now carving *light* out of *darkness*. I hope that sort of makes sense?

Above: The Goldilock's Zone of lino cut rendering? This AI conversion of my drawing of the Scarborough Market Hall has a level of detail that I think I might be able to do even as a beginner. So this will be my second lino cut piece once I have completed my Crow print. From here 'stage 3' will be - hopefully - for me to generate a wholly original lino cut design myself. Fingers crossed!

It's a totally different approach to conveying scenes for me - making 'light' out of 'dark' instead of rendering 'dark from 'light'. A sort of mirror approach that I need to rewire my creative brain to adapt to!

...Many thanks to The North Yorks Arts School for their tuition.