16 Artists & Illustratorsfresh paint
ABOVE Louise
Stebbing, Bubbles
at Eros, linocut,
42x54cmLOUISE STEBBING
Portfolio Plus member Louise Stebbing has been making
linoprints for more than 30 years, carving from her
converted barn studio in the Fenland countryside. Her
works are most often made with the ‘reduction method’, a
technique that uses one piece of lino to print all the desired
colours, cutting the surface away in the process.
She describes Bubbles at Eros as “one of the trickiest
linocuts I have created. I used about six small rollers to get
the different colours I wanted.”
Louise normally captures her subjects in a plein air
sketch, but spotted this scene whilst rushing back from an
exhibition, and used her camera instead. “I was amazed at
the people in the rain watching someone blow bubbles, I
loved all the umbrellas and reflections,” she says.
Bubbles at Eros echoes a painterly style, using a widerange of marks and cuts to add depth to the image. She
even manages to convey the wet of the pavement, a
difficult task in a linoprint. This technique stands to reason,
given that her influences tend to be artists of a painter/
printmaker background such as John Piper and Edward
Bawden. And yet the artist she is compared to the most is
Vincent Van Gogh, whose thick brushstrokes mirror the
carved waves of the linocut.
Her advice to amateur lino artists is to start small, and
play it safe when cutting, “buy some good lino tools, even if
you only get two to begin with and enjoy playing while you
learn how it works best for you. And mind your fingers; keep
the hand you’re not using out of the way!”
Sign up for your own personalised Portfolio Plus today at
http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk or visit Louise’s profile at
http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/louisestebbingtop tip
Using a wide range
of cuts and marks
in your linocuts will
help your style appear
more painterly12 Fresh Paint.indd 16 12/05/2016 09: