Commission for lino cuttings
Lino cuttings of animals for Living Potential Care Farm
An opportunity was presented to me from a friend who passed on information of the farm they work at seeking someone to commission to make cuttings of lino carved with portraits of the six Alpacas they keep, as well as a craving of the group of them.
The brief:
1 x mock up of how the lino might look
7 x lino cutting carved with design
1 x design of each Alpaca1 x group design
No larger than A5 size
To be supplied as cuttings for the farm to use to create prints
About the farm:
"Living Potential is based on a working farm, near Wetherby, Leeds. We are a community interest company, set up to be a non-profit social enterprise. It is run by Tanya and a team of staff who have many years of experience, teaching and working in a variety of environments and who have seen first-hand the therapeutic effects of nature-based interventions."Photographs to work from
As I hadn't been to the farm or seen the Alpacas, my friend sent me these images to work from.
I used these to created the designs, tracing over them on my laptop screen with tracing paper and transferring them onto the surface I was working.
I started by doing a mock up of a portrait, transferring the sketch onto black paper, and working into it with white pencil. This is so that we can imagine how the ink will appear when printed; the black paper being the ink. As I have to carve away, I can use white pencil to act as detraction from the surface. This gives a sense of how it will look, but also how I will work on the lino.
I also sketched out the group design so that I could send it to the client, to have as well as the mock up of a portrait.
After having positive feedback from the managing director, Tanya, I went ahead and started.
For the group I took the sketch and transferred it onto the lino, carving the negative space.
I then drew each of the portraits on tracing paper, positioning and scaling them all the same. I made sure to mark the dark areas so I new where I should carve (the empty space).
I came up with a signature to carve into each portrait (forgetting to do so for the group) which is a P and b fitting together, although the b was backwards creating a d, so it didn't work. I got rid of this by carving it off when I realised the mistake after printing!
I used an ink pad to check how the print was looking as I carved.
The outcome is a collection of 6 portraits of each Alpaca and a group carving. I took some prints to check the quality, amending any bits I was unhappy with, such as unwanted marks.
I will keep these prints as a record of what I have done, as they will keep the lino carvings at the farm.
When taking them to the farm to hand them over, the team at Living Potential expressed how pleased they were with them. The main thing was that they were able to distinguish between each alpaca, putting a name to their face just from the prints, which was very satisfying!
I went to the Apple and Harvest Festival event in which the lino prints were being sold. The members at the farm printed on coloured paper and cushion cases made from the Alpaca wool. It was a joy to see they had been used by the farm! I had many compliments from folk at the event and after for the design.
The project was a huge success and has lead me to further work with the farm and opportunities going forwards in my professional practice.
