The First (Lino) Cut Is The Deepest

So, this is a thing i do now…

I’ve always loved woodcuts and linocuts. I love the mixture of the rustic and the elegant, where swooping curves can meet rough lines that feel like they’ve been hewn from the very stuff of the earth (because they have).

Felix Vallotton – Portrait Of An Old Man

I love the huge slabs of light and dark, and the fact that it seems like an art with no messing about. It’s art which is trying to communicate in the most direct way possible, through the most primitive means we have, and yet the results can be unbearably delicate.

I love the fact that children can do it, that you can do it with a potato if you don’t have lino or wood or any cutting tools sharper than a kitchen knife. I love the fact that block printing is probably the first art form you’ll be introduced to after finger painting, and the tactile sensations of squashing ink on something, pressing it on paper, and then peeling the paper off remain as satisfying as they did when you were three.

Valentine Lino Print block, Mangle Prints (2013)

So, because I love block printing, and because writing often means days of waiting for feedback on a script, and performing often means your days are pretty empty even when your evenings are full, at the end of last year I decided to try linocutting.

The initial kit of plastic cutters and a bit of lino was reasonably inexpensive, and the more I looked at linocuts, and the more I thought about them, the more I thought I could maybe do them. And that that wouldn’t be a terrible thing to do with any free time I had.

After Christmas (where I learned the importance of carving the letters and numbers backwards)…

Remember to cut your words and numbers backwards, kids!

I eventually made some that I was happy with, and decided to pop them online to see if there was any response. There was.

Now, little more than six months later, I have lots of designs, my cards are selling online (at Linoceros Cards), and you’ll also find them in nine shops around the south-east. I get to spend slightly more time than I’d envisaged covered in ink and looking places to stick cards so that they can dry.

What started as something to do to see if I could has become something that I’ve now got to decide if I want to devote more time and resources to. It’s still telling jokes, but it’s telling them in pictures, now, rather than words.

Anyway, so if I’ve been a little quiet lately (and the infrequent blog updates suggest I have), it’s because I’ve been quietly wasting flooring material, and stabbing myself in the thumbs with tiny V-shaped knives.

And I love that now, too.

(If you’d like a voucher for some of my cards, you can get £5 free here.)