Linocut of the House - Development

 Linocut - using a newly discovered photograph

Development:

Since finding the image of the front of the house I have wanted to do a linocut. I started the process but wasn't sure how it would fit with my practice. Sometime I just have an urge to create something. It was side lined a few times to meet deadlines but I finally started. 

The overall look was a night setting, viewing the house across the field, the lane gate post in the foreground with the twisted trees. I knew I wanted to use black ink on a cream paper. I also wanted to try printing on tracing paper to see if the ghostly opaque quality would give an interesting twist.

The result on the tracing paper wasn't as I had imaged it. The ink struggled to adhere to the tracing paper so it looked smudged and patchy. The paper is too smooth so the ink slipped around. See image below, photographed on the floor (the lines are the floorboards to show the opacity of the paper).

Printing on the paper was more successful, although I felt it didn't have the impact I had hoped for. It did however feel rather eerie which I wanted to create. I have been reading The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher for my CCS essay research. The book seem to trigger a long forgotten childhood obsession with ghost stories and spookiness. Misty annuals, Alan Garner novels, 1970s TV programs and Armarda ghost story books all crept back into my memory.

 

The block 2 CCS essay was about the eerieness of the pastoral english countryside. I knew my dream of the house could easily take on an eerie turn. The Genus Loci of the area draws me in and I want to explore why the house in haunting me. I think because people who saw the image I found of the front of the house looked 'spooky'. It didn't to me and the misty image looked like sunshine shot in black and white but I wonder if this and my CCS subject is why the project is taking an uncanny turn.