I’ve started getting into a new medium: Linocut! I think almost everyone who took an art class in high school has done at least one of these. I was really drawn to this medium because I’ve been selling prints of my paintings for a while now, and I like the idea of making my own prints at home, plus I really like the unique qualities that this medium gives to an image. There’s a rustic element and a little bit of chaos involved that makes each print unique.

I chose this first image of a windup robot as an experiment to see what comes out of the process, and it’s given me a lot of ideas on what kind of subject matter might lend itself well to this medium. It seems like things with a lot of detail, like woodgrain and dragon scales might be conveyed really well by this type of image making.

I’m really looking forward to doing more with this… there’s so many variables involved that can be tweaked, like ink color, paper/substrate choice, pressure, etc. There are some parallels with screen printing that make this medium a lot of fun to work with. I’m interested in developing a multicolor print press so I can achieve good registration with multiple plates. I’ll be taking some of the better prints to sell at ZaPow Gallery!