“If you’d have told me at the start of October I’d be able to design, carve and print 31 mini linoprints in 31 days I’d probably have laughed,” begins printmaker Haychley Webb of Stellabox Designs. Organised by Daniel Villa in association with Speedball Art, Printober is an annual print challenge that gives printmakers from around the world chance to come together by creating prints following a series of prompt words. Haychley began the month thinking she’d potentially be able to squeeze in a week’s worth of prints around ‘normal’ printmaking daily life, but found herself enjoying it so much she just couldn’t stop!
“I cannot tell you how beneficial this challenge was for me in developing my linocut style. It gave me the perfect excuse to try out new cuts and techniques on the block that I wouldn’t have attempted on larger blocks,” says Haychley. Halfway through the month she hand carved a crystal in a hand; something that would have seemed incredibly daunting even two weeks before, but the previous days had given her the confidence to just jump right in. She tells us; “Trying new cuts is my equivalent of skydiving and I find it hard to just freestyle carve and let loose sometimes but by the end of the month I was drawing and carving straight onto the block – so liberating”.
The word prompts for this challenge varied from easier words like ‘whale’ and ‘tree’, to far more challenging prompts such as ‘wind instrument’ and ‘singing’. Many of the prompts for these ‘harder’ words actually became some of Haychley’s favourite prints of the month. She states; “Of course, some things I tried just didn’t really work out- such is life- but with each block I learned something new. I love that six years after starting to learn linocut I’m still learning daily and finding new ways to express myself in this medium. I ended the month wanting to create entire small landscapes and scenes around the prompt word.”
Printober has also revitalised Haychley’s love of landscapes; “I feel confident now that I can see a landscape and be able to translate it into a linoprint”. She continues; “The biggest surprise for me with landscapes was discovering that not everything has to represented on the block- it’s *okay* to not carve every single tree/feature/hill- you can use the medium and represent these things with marks and lines that let your eyes fill in the detail. It seems like an obvious thing but it has really intimidated me in the past.”
Haychley’s hopes to carry this project on by printing one piece a week following a ‘pick a word from the dictionary’ style approach. All of her Printober pieces were carved on traditional grey lino and printed with a wooden spoon onto Japanese HoSho paper, and are now available on her website. She concludes; “I highly encourage everyone to join in an art challenge of any kind to push yourself- maybe see you in the hashtag next year for Printober 2023”.
www.stellabox.co.uk
@stellaboxdesigns
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