In some ways I feel like 2019 is a bit of a do-over for all the things I’d planned to do in 2018 that got washed away by the flood. Printmaking was high on the list of goals last year that was no longer possible without a studio to experiment in.

I kicked off my studio time in the first week of January with lino printing a pattern using very colourful inks on Canson paper. This was in preparation for a paper cutting and pattern mixing experiment on a large scale, and I wanted custom paper to do it with.

I printed each circle by hand, working quickly and carefully to line things up. I created it as a one-off print because I wanted something colourful and patterned to work with to see how well it would interact with the negative/positive of cut paper.

I drew a whole bunch of patterns on the back of the paper, choosing to use repetitions of geometric shapes, and a few of my favourite Japanese textile patterns. I was trying to keep them as simple as possible for the sake of the experiment because I knew cutting would take the longest.

I filmed a hyperlapse video of me working on one of the final sections the other day. My cutting process is different with these because I can make a cut to multiple pieces before shifting the paper into a different angle. With my unique patterns created through spontaneous process, I complete each shape before moving onto the next one.

I’ll share the finished pattern mixing piece in another blog post.