Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Linocut Dept.



This is a "varied edition" of 12 linocuts. The black line was originally done in 1974 for a cartoon titled "Kiwi Brown And The Statistics." It was just one panel of that 3 page strip, for which I received less than $50 per page. I had given the carved block to my friend Tony Mostrom years ago. He found it in his garage and loaned it back to me. Last year I constructed a registration jig for the many additional colors. I experimented with several new substrates for the additional blocks, which created bold textures. There is a tremendous attrition rate for this medium.  I began with at least 50 pristine sheets of heavyweight cover stock, of which only a dozen came to fruition.
  The term "varied edition" is another way of saying there is some hand-painting added and every print has a slight deviation from perfect registration or color distribution. This medium is not for perfectionists.