St. Luke's Attic

There are those who excel at making color prints. They will cut multiple color blocks, plan, scheme, arrange, experiment and print, print, print until they have a virtual painting of a print. Others will do all the planning and scheming but choose to do a reduction linocut or woodcut. This is even more difficult than cutting multiple color blocks. It takes A LOT of forethought and complex mental visualizations before setting out to make a piece.

Right about now you are asking yourself if I, your host and artist, do either of these things. I have in the past. But now I prefer to choose the tertium quid. I choose to color my prints. Watercolor actually. It’s a ton of fun and the results can be very satisfying. Since I print my linocuts in oil based ink, it’s super easy to break out the watercolors  and paint right over the black ink once it’s dry. (This works because, as you know, oil repels water. When I used to work at a grocery store way, way back in my dumb youth, we would use this fascinating principle for evil. We would tell the new baggers that the salad dressings had begun to separate and that they needed to shake them all up until they were a nice consistent blend. Depending on how sharp the bagger was, he could be there shaking salad dressings for a very long time.)

Anyway, here are the results on my chicken print. You know, the print you all have been salivating over and can’t wait to buy? (See the Etsy button up in the left-hand corner? Go ahead an click on it!)

Here is the original, the-way-I-always-envisioned-it black and white image.

And…… Glorious Color!