Lino Friday...

I think we all understand creative obsessions

 and I have been known to give in to mine more often than I can count

 but I have actually shown restraint in the latest one

 It shocks the socks off me that I have managed to do it

 but it turns out I can actually not drop everything and plunge headlong into whatever creative whim takes my fantasy, but to be honest now that I know I can do it

 I probably won't need to go down that road again

 I can return to being having a glorious case of attention deficit... oooo paint

This latest obsession all started when we were on holidays recently

I bought a couple of gorgeous lino prints to bring home

in fact it was amazing that I didn't buy about twenty as this work was just perfect

and from that moment on I have been thinking about wanting to do a few lino prints

I hunted down my tools and brayer and all that as soon as we arrived home

only to find tools had rusted, brayer had a big dent in it

and the ink had dried so hard it was like something the centre of the world had coughed up

so off to the art supply I go

which had nothing

then another one... nada again

finally third time lucky and I got some stuff

I was so happy I took off out of the store and home to the studio like my duds were on fire

the joy of it all was almost too much and I happily pulled out this sketch which had been rattling away in the back of the old noggin as a likely opening subject

But then of course all sorts of things got in the way

the epic de-clutter of 2016 Part 1 took place

playing with Barry the cat takes up a silly amount of time

the great wall of washing had grown exponentially every time I walked past the laundry

contemplating my toenails even took precedence at one point

what can I say... I have a wonky big toenail which is just weirding me out

Of course then illustration jobs started mounting up

a commission was taxing the brain

not to mention getting Delicious Paint up and running was going to be epic

but despite some growing stress levels

my brain just kept going back to lino

so I decided to do the delayed gratification thing

and tell myself I could do some lino when all some of those things was done

So today was the day

Some illustrations had gone out this week

prints packaged and sent

commission contemplated at least

and Delicious Paint is up and running and filled with all sorts of wonderful people

so I sat down this morning and drew up

quickly carved and then printed this sucker

such fun... harder than I remember and I need some serious practice

but totally worth the wait

In fact I am going to go and hunt through the sketchbooks for my next subject

happy painting all...xx

PS if you want to come and join us in Delicious Paint

the link is here...