Nauty But Nice

Following on from the previous post, I developed the pencil drawing of the space bear and turned him into a linocut.

I've only done one linocut before and it... well, it was a first attempt. The Ursunaut has turned out better, although it needs another pass with the cutter to remove some of the extraneous inking - mainly on the face and the background. I quite like some of the other accidental lines that turned up on the helmet and around the lettering.

 

 The lino, and some preparatory compositional doodles. I very carefully drew out the image and transferred it to the lino in reverse, and then blithely wrote 'URSUNAUT' the right (i.e. the wrong) way round, so I had to write it in again, backwards, over the top of the black marker in white conte pencil so I could see it.

It's an odd, sluggish sort of material to work with, but I quite liked the sense of everything being under control that gave me. Also, a top tip I picked up from somewhere - lie the lino in warm water now and again. Much easier to cut.