Money for old rope…

I’ve just finished an illustration for an new craft beer and thought I’d share it with you. I can’t tell you anything about the brand just yet, but hope to share it with you eventually.

The design called for a illustration of a nautical style knot – specifically, a reef (or square) knot with the ends tied off in a wall knot, like this:

I needed to explore the shape of the knot and scale of the the rope to match the composite on the brief, and add depth in the form of hard shadows:

This image then required distressing to give the impression that this was a vintage diagram, with a much looser feel than the digital drawing. This was first put through another digital process that allowed me some carefully controlled manipulation before transferring the drawing to a block of lino:

I did about half a dozen prints of varying quality which were then scanned.

Finally, the scans were converted to vectors and some further manipulations were made to clean up the frayed ends of the rope, resulting in:

I’ll share the full design just as soon as I can!

Lino

I completed cutting the first three lino blocks and decided to do a few test prints to check how things were looking. I was not totally happy with one or two areas and wanted to check that had nailed a few details too, and a couple of prints on a cold but bright afternoon seemed like a good idea.

Because these were test prints I rummaged around and gathered a handful of sheets of leftovers and cracked open the black ink.

I’m generally quite pleased with the results but need to do some refining and cleaning up. A good start though.

I mentioned last time that I had bought some new tools. These are actually woodcarving tools and are a little bigger than what I’m used to. The four on the left are from my new Gerstaecker set and the one one the right is my trusty Abig that I am still using as well. I rather fancy some of those nifty Pfiel tools, but the Yorkshireman in me still baulks at the price, but you never know…

More lino shenanigans as it occurs…

Back on the block

LESTARET-lino-flat-1

I’ve been cutting some new lino blocks today after making a batch of drawings over the weekend. These are intended for inclusion in an exhibition later this year, so I’m only going to show some works in progress and close-ups so that I don’t reveal too much for now!

I have another two blocks drawn up ready to cut and three more ready to transfer to lino – just waiting for a new lino delivery. I have already bought some new tools which I’ll share another time.

I love the smell of cut lino in the morning…