Lino Prints

Hi all,
I don't know about you but whenever I think about creating a piece of artwork, I always seem to consider the commercial value. Will people like it and, would anybody want to buy it, are two thoughts that come to mind along with how much could I sell it for?

These are strange thoughts, considering that making money from my art is not a prime motivator. I keep telling myself that I'm doing for the enjoyment of the process and to create something nice for my own pleasure, but those commercial thoughts will persist.

I can only put it down to the notion that the act of selling something that I have created gives it an elevated status. After all, if somebody is willing to part with their hard earned cash for something I painted or made, surely that is all the endorsement one's art needs.

Anyway, during the act of creating the wild flower painting in my last post

it came to me that it could be easily be replicated in print form. I then struck on the idea that I could do a lino print. Now I know diddly squat about lino prints, we didn't even do them at school, where the best we managed was a potato print. In fact, the my main memory of lino was, many moons ago when I was a young thing about town, and beer was but ten pence a pint, being left to sleep on cold lino floor after I'd returned from the pub in state of drunkenness that almost put me into permanent sleep mode.

So I did what I normally do now to educate myself, I turned to the Internet and You tube to see how it was done. Then, I purchased a lino starter kit from Amazon for about £20. While I was waiting for it to arrive I did a couple of drawings that I thought would make good lino prints. I would print them in black and white and then colour them in with watercolour paint.

 The first one didn't look too bad, but perhaps it would be a bit ambitious for my first lino print so I did a simpler one. This looked much easier to replicate in lino print and I was ready for action.

My plan was to then sell a limited edition of the prints on the internet. What could possibly go wrong? Well, I had several attempts at doing a lino cut and used a lot of paper making prints, but unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the process one bit. The best part was creating the drawing, but the actually cutting and printing was tedious. Here is the best print I produced before I gave it up as a bad job. I couldn't even be bothered to colour it in.

I guess I could have stuck with it and lashed out more money better tools and ink but I'd had enough. I can now admire the skills of those who create masterpieces out of a floor covering, but it doesn't ring my bell. I'll stick to the painting in future and one of the day, if I ever produce something good enough, I will investigate the world of Giclee prints because they will be easier to acquire than those done from lino.