Lino cut print and line pencil drawing of a Triple Rose. This is from a photograph I took‚ that I created a pen and ink illustration of and then a lino carving print.
This work is available for sale as an original lino cut print.
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Lino Cut - hand signed and numbered
Paper: Traditional Kozo Natural Paper (slightly golden beige)
Sakura Oil based ink custom mixed to blue and matched to the artist proof as per recipe.
Print size approx 300x300mm
Paper size approx 650x495mm
Limited edition of 50 hand signed prints
Unframed Lino cut print
Fits into an Ikea Ribba frame
This is a limited edition original Linocut in an edition of 50. The pictured image is unframed and the edition number will be subsequent to 1/50.
This rose caught my attention while visiting the South Island of New Zealand. It triggered something primal in my soul, and I took a quick snapshot so as to produce art at a later, more convenient time. I decided to linocut the image rather then paint it, partially as a challenge to myself, partially to further explore its textures light and shadow.
Triple Spiral
The Celtic triple spiral or triskele symbol is sometimes called the spiral of life and was found in the Newgrange site from the Bronze Age in Ireland. The triple spiral is an ancient symbol of Celtic beliefs, and was used consistently in Celtic art for 3 millennia. The Celts believed that all life moved in eternal cycles, regenerating at each point. Celts also believed that all important things came in three phases; for example: birth, death and rebirth and mind, body and spirit.
The triple spiral later became the triskele used in Christian manuscripts. In neopagan religions, the triple spiral is also used to represent the triple goddess. According to Uriel's Machine by Knight and Lomas (2003) the triple spiral may represent the nine month period of human pregnancy, since the sun takes a fourth of a year to go from the celestial equator (an equinox) to extreme north or south declination (a solstice), and vice versa. During each three-month period, the sun's path appears to form a closely-wound quasi-helical shape, which can be likened to a spiral, so that three spirals could represent nine months, providing an explanation for a link between fertility and the triple-spiral symbol.
Origins of Linocut
Although linoleum is a floor covering that dates to the 1860s, the linocut printing technique was used first by the artists of Die Brücke in Germany between 1905 and 1913, where it had been similarly used for wallpaper printing.
A Linocut is a relief print (like a woodcut), the image is carved from a block of Linoleum. Areas are carved or cut away from the block, what remains will print when the inked roller is passed over the top of the block and paper is laid on the block to take an impression by hand or through a press.
All my Linocuts are hand printed on handmade Japanese Washi paper which for centuries has been used for block printmaking. It is thin enough for hand printing yet surprisingly strong and quite beautiful, also acid free and archival.
The majority of my Linocuts are custom coloured, I mix my own ink colours. I use Sakura Ink and have an artist’s proof print as my guide for the colours and tones that I will apply to a print in the same edition, there may be slight variations as my colour mixing is ‘painterly’ therefore each print in an edition is an individual.
