Cigarette Break

Lino print, 20 x 15 cm

I don't condone smoking in the slightest, but these two characters appeared outside a building on a business park while I was drawing the building and what could I do but include them? They spent a long time smoking their cigarettes - I was able to "zoom in" and sketch them on their own.

The buildingsketch (with extra personnel  - who didn't stay out so long) and the manual zoom

 Later, at home, I cut a lino block featuring the two of them. As you can see, I didn't worry about the reversal of the printing process here; the scene would be pretty much the same whichever way round it was.

The block I used was a soft cut, rubbery, plastic thing. It is very easy to cut, and the squeaky-clean lines that you get from cutting into it are perfect for this simplified, graphical style. The block is black - the first one from a small collection that I ordered on eBay. I used a white Conté sketching pencil to draw on it, and was regretting the demise of my white chinagraph pencil, which would have been perfect.

I quite like cutting from sketches. Part of the detail reduction has already been done, and it can be easier to work out the extreme monochromacity if the colour is absent.