Michael Gage

A dark layer on the boats and trees, and the print is finished at last.



9 stage reduction linocut, 30 x 24cm.

This is the view from Waterloo Bridge, looking east along the Embankment to the City of London.

The green on the previous layer worked so well, I decided to do some more.



That's the trees finished now. Next stage: complete the boats, and we're done.

Some green, just on the trees.

And a layer of darker blue. We're getting there.

All the light tones are in place, so it's time to move towards the mid-tones. A layer of blue establishes the main shapes.



Sorry about the blurred photo!

Just some green on the trees.

A challenging stage.

I needed to add some details to the boats at some stage. Because they're small and mid-toned, I would usually put them on a later layer -- if they'd been any other colour than red. However, I find red the most difficult colour to work with because it's so transparent. If I leave the red to a later layer, it won't print well (all the earlier layers will show through, and it won't look bright red). So it's better to print when there are only light colours on the print.

But the other problem with red is that it's difficult to print on top of: when it's dry, its surface is more resistant to other ink on top.



Solution: I used an acetate stencil and printed the red just on the boats (and put some brown on some of the distant buildings). Now the red is exactly where I want it. I can cut away those areas from the block, and not have to worry about them again.

This layer has just slightly darker versions of the colours that are on the previous layer.



That's the sky finished, at least. So far, so good. But it always looks good at this stage!

And we're off again: a new print starts.



I've cut out the pure whites, and printed a pale blue to pale brown gradient. (It's actually paler than it looks in this photo.) Even at this stage, the subject matter might be recognisable: can you tell what it is yet?

A few details in black on the tenth(!) layer completes the print.



Havana, Cuba. Reduction linocut, 30 x 24cm.

Dark blue over the entire picture consolidates the earlier layers.



Nearly there... One more layer to go.

The trees still aren't right, so I added another still darker layer just to those bits.

 

 (Stage 8?! How did that happen? Can this print get any slower? My next print will be of a tortoise on a glacier: that might move faster.)

I was hoping that the mid-dark blue that I put on the shadows of the building in the previous layer would also read as the shadows on the trees. But I don't think it's going to work convincingly, so I've added some darker green just to the trees.



(Bad photo: the dark blue looks lighter in this photo that it did in the previous one. But of course it's exactly the same.)

Darker layer of blue.



Now we're getting somewhere, and about time too. Stage 6, and I reckon there's still about three more to go.

A layer of mid-toned blue; things start to make sense.

Back on track today.

I needed to start adding some colour to the trees, but I didn't want the green to leak into the surrounding areas. So I made a mask and just printed those green bits.



Progress on this print is turning out to be painfully slow!

Pale blue over the entire block joins all the elements together, and the picture starts to make more sense. Still a long way to go yet though.

Another layer: a bit darker blue, and a bit darker orange. Still not much to see.

The start of another reduction linocut. Not much to see yet, but I've put a very pale blue-grey across the sky, and some orange for some rooftops.

Finished at last, with a dark layer just on the buses to bring them to the front of the picture space.



San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Roma.
Eight stage reduction linocut, 30 x 24cm.

The view is from the Corso Vittoria Emmanuele II in Rome, across the Via Paola, to the front of the San Giovanni dei Fiorentini church. I chose this view because I wanted to make a picture of Rome that avoided the obvious subject matter such as the Colosseum, the Vatican and so on. This particular view summed up what I liked about Rome: the clutter of a modern city crammed up next to a Renaissance masterpiece.


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