And here’s day three, of five, for #artchain – some winter scenes from my all-too-brief but happy Snow Phase.
I’m wondering if I’m supposed to actually post these images on five consecutive days? I hope not, because at the rate I’m going, I won’t be finished until Christmas. Perhaps I should have saved these until then

I’ve finally finished my London Bridge Station linocut – I’m not sure why I chose to depict such a rainy day when it’s been absolute brilliant sunshine out there for months. Still, it looks cheerful enough with all those little umbrellas…

So here is my latest linocut – a view of the Croydon Underpass. I know it’s not particularly impressive but I’ve always been fond of it as a typical piece of sixties municipal architecture.
Even the Wikipedia entry is modest – the most they manage is to say is that it’s quite near to that other neglected gem, the Croydon Flyover.
Anyway, as I’d found this one a bit tricky, I decided to give the Vehicular Art a bit of a rest.
Until the other day, that is, when I saw a very promising stretch of the South Circular….

Lately I’ve come to realise that cars and caravans (especially caravans) are boring, ugly and completely devoid of any elegance.
I have had – and you may be ahead of me here – a difficult few weeks wrestling with my Croydon Underpass linocut but I think I’m ready to edition it now. At last…

Pleased I didn’t have to carry this one back to the studio after the REprintmaking show – it sold in the last ten minutes!

While sitting in the usual queue of traffic on the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel, I had an idea – what could be a nicer subject for a new linocut, than a view of the A102? If only I’d known….

So off I go, sketching out a rough plan – who knew cars were so difficult to draw?

The working drawing is coming along – did I mention all those cars? There are SO many….

A rough cut of the first block – the lino is so long, I had to make a new registration board for it.

And I had to print one end first, turn the block around and pass it through the press again…..

I hadn’t got too far before I realised the road surface was too dark and needed to be cut away.

The first few proofs are not working out the way I’d hoped – this is going to be a bit tricky.

Back to the beginning –  I think I’ll try green instead on the first block, followed by pale yellow.

Third block is finally printed – this is turning out to be a printmaking marathon. I want a medal…

You know things aren’t going well when the note taking gets out of control.

The number of trial proofs is multiplying – but the colours are coming together now.

So finally, all four blocks are cut and working together well.

And the finished print is called ‘The Day’s Work Done’ – possibly a little irony in there….

Here is my latest linocut, showing the interior of Balham Underground Station. It’s inside the north entrance at that point where you turn to go down into the ticket hall. This was a tricky subject, as I wrote in my last post, but I do like a challenge.
I’ve called it Gateway to the South, courtesy of Peter Sellers….