Many, many years ago I worked in the printing industry, in the days when everything was back to front and upside down (always upside down so you could read left to right!!). So, when the opportunity arose to spend a day a week for around a year re-learning all about the art of printmaking, well, it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. The course dealt with all printmaking techniques, including the humble linocut – something learned at school by many of us.

Encouraged to try different approaches to creating images in reverse I hit on the finer detail that, if really careful, can be achieved; and it is this approach that I have worked on over the past couple of years.

The “art” is in creating the original illustration in which a photograph or, more usually a montage of photographs, is reduced. Computer software can help in manipulating the photographic image into shape but flattening the image to two or three basic layers can only be achieved by hand and eye. The illustration is split into its respective colours and each transferred by hand to appear, back-to-front, on flat sheets of artists’ linoleum (yes, it’s the same stuff that covered floors in pre-vinyl days). 

Once drawn, the areas that are not wanted in the final image are cut away, being careful to not remove vital aspects of the finished work. When each plate is completed, it is “inked up” (back to my early life in the printing industry) and, using carefully placed registration marks, printed so as to appear as a finished linocut image. Each image is carefully reproduced in very high resolution to create the limited edition prints on sale on this site and at the Artisan markets.

Welcome to my World in Linocuts – Dave Williams