An update from John Richardson at Two Terriers Press:

My plan was to produce twelve to eighteen new editioned linocuts and the subject was to be simply the area ‘Where I live’. My prints are not conventional linocuts with flat colours because I use texture and ink surfaces to create effects rather than simply work with flat colours and overprints; in many cases you can actually feel the ink in relief on the surface of the paper. The area covered by the work would be from Upwell in the north and down to Ely in the south, east towards Lakenheath and Mildenhall and west to Chatteris. A large area with plenty of scope for research and subject gathering covering much of the West Norfolk and Suffolk Fenland. The land of big fields where arable crops and salad crops grow and a land of even bigger skies.

Sadly the ‘lockdown’ has curtailed the gathering of information and reference but the cutting and printing carries on. Here are four prints from the new suite of work and hopefully the lockdown will encourage me to assimilate more work and then I only have to find a gallery to show the finished work. Anyway here are four prints from the series that will give you a taste of what is being produced, all of the prints are near enough 300mm x 215mm.

Orange September 

A linocut printed in eight colours in an edition of ten

The field of pumpkins were growing right in front of the house and the colour of the crop was absolutely fantastic. We missed them when they were harvested.

After the Round Up

A linocut printed in ten colours in an edition of ten

A huge field that had been treated with Round Up weed killer after the wheat was harvested. The herbicide makes the Black Grass turn strange colours as it breaks down.

The trouble is it has a half-life of twenty years in the ground.

Bramley Blossom

A linocut printed in eight colours in an edition of ten

A strange and Arthur Rackham-like vision of an orchard because of the strange method of pruning that allows mechanical picking. In blossom the trees are very Japanese.

Cutting through the mustard

A linocut in eleven colours in an edition of ten

Sue and I were out in car exploring – or getting rather lost on the small droves – when we saw the mustard crop in full flower with a dyke full of green water slicing right through the middle, bridged by old railway sleepers.