New work in progress – with hand carved text!

Finally I have time to start a new print. I got this goat willow (or pussy willow) in a bunch of flowers a few weeks ago and I couldn’t resist drawing it…in my beautiful new sketchbook. I bought this lovely handmade book from Richard Shimmel, a fellow lino artist, who has used some of his extra prints to cover these books. They are beautifully made and a joy to use.

I wanted to do something that would look like a bookplate from an old botanical book. I had an idea about the kind of typeface I wanted so searched the internet and found this one. It’s called Matador and it’s just what I had in mind.

Here is the start of the tracing process. For a change this is going to be a multi block print, which is a bit out of my comfort zone as I really do prefer to do reduction prints! Once I’ve carved this key block I will offset it onto the other blocks to make sure everything is in the same place.

Author: Nancy Power

'Printmaker Nancy Power's work reflects the life around her. Be it a changing rural landscape, the decaying plants in her garden, or her collection of hand crafted ceramics, she finds inspiration from many sources. Deliberately eclectic in subject matter, her work is harmonised by her colour palette and distinctive inking process. Nancy uses the reduction method of lino printmaking; carving away at just one block for each consecutive colour to reveal the final image. By inking from dark to light, as opposed to the more traditional light to dark, Nancy's work has engaging depth and colour layering.' View all posts by Nancy Power