Relief Printmaking as Topography in Action

My new series, Beloved, looks at land areas at the edge — places where land and water combine in spectacular fashion. Places that will be lost with sea-level rise.

It is often hard for people to imagine how I go about creating my linocuts. You have to think backwards, I tell them, like in watercolor. I usually have a pencil outline of the most important features of the image — in this case, land and water. After these sections are marked, I use colored pencils to remind myself where I should carve. Here is a progression from one of the linocuts:

Water is drawn in blue. Places to carve away pink.

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Now if only spring would really come

Elizabeth Busey. Prints on the Land. Linoleum Reduction Print, 25 x 40in, 2013.

My first large-scale print is finished. In Prints on the Land, I wanted to capture that overwhelming experience of late spring in the Midwest – warm, moist, earth-scented, and yes, green.

When I first finished this print, I hung it in my studio to take a look. My studio is small, so I could only stand about four feet away from the print. I was pretty unsure about what I had created. Last weekend I exhibited one print at my church as part of the culmination of my grant. When I could stand back farther, I suddenly saw what I had intended. Larger work just needs more room to breathe. Whew!
For the grant, I am placing prints at several places where the public can experience the work, read about the project, and yes, even touch the print (gasp!) Framing these larger works is more expensive, and I didn’t want to have any site say no because of concerns over liability. So people can touch the print, read about the press expansion, touch a sample of carved linoleum, and see “in progress” pictures. I rarely put in-progress pictures in my blog because setting up the lights and camera is a lengthy process. For this grant, I set up some of the lights and used a smaller camera. So the colors aren’t exactly precise, but you will get the idea.
Yellow/orange blend roll.
Light green
Blue layer using a stencil protect the hillside.
A layer of magenta changes everything.

 

Now we can see more of the rows.
Another blue area.

 

Another layer of bright blue completes the print. Now if only spring would really arrive in the Midwest.