Library Research

I visited the library again, really just to gather any more inspiration and ideas about stock and techniques of printing lino cuts as well as how other practitioners have worked into the prints afterwards. In previous artist research into lino cut artists I have found mixed medias from oil paint backgrounds to added colour and detail with water colours. I have a few canvases so I am going to prep these with some vibrant colourful paints, I have in mind bold blues, pinks and fresh greens. I need to keep in mind the juxtaposing ink colour because I don't have much room for error on the canvases.

The library visit wasn't great for books on specifically lino printing, I only managed to get out 2 books as quite a few hadn't been returned by their previous owners. The books I borrowed were:

• Linoleum Block Printing by Francis J Kafka.
• Cyril Power Linocuts: A complete Catalogue by Philip Vann.
  

The librarian was really helpful and mentioned that he had actually had some visitors give a talk on South Indian printing methods. He has a dvd which he is going to get for me. Arun Wolf from Tara Books. Arun Wolf is a young filmmaker from Chennai, India, and has been associated with Tara for several years - he assists with visual documentation and is involved in producing book-related shorts and themed documentaries for Tara Books. He’s also one of the editors of Tara Books’ latest title Between Memory and Museum.

The Cloth of the Mother Goddess by Jagdish Chitara is a limited-edition artists’ book consisting of a sequence of folding panels, designed to invoke pre-modern – and particularly Asian – traditions of bookmaking. It has been made by hand from block-printed cloth panels. Each book is a work of art, which recreates a ritual Indian textile art form known as Mata-Ni-Pachedi. The book’s editor, Arun Wolf, gave a talk at SADACC (South Asian Decorative Arts & Crafts Collection) in Norwich. He talked about the traditions and processes behind the book, alongside a short film that provided a glimpse into the artist Jagdish Chitara’s work.

Tara Books

Tara Books is an independent publisher of picture books for adults and children based on Chennai South India. Founded in 1994, they remain a collective of dedicated writers, designers and artists who strive for a union of fine form with rich content. They continue to work with a growing tribe of adventurous people from around the world. Fiercely independent, they publish a select list that straddles diverse genres, offering readers unusual and rare voices in art and literature. 

Tara Books are relevant to my project because they show a real world context to how printing and hand crafted aesthetic can be used for professional and high quality products. .

Do! is handmade book published by Tara Books, India. It is a set of action pictures, rendered in the Warli art done by people belonging to a tribal community that lives in Maharashtra, in western India. It introduces basic verbs to the young reader through a series of brilliantly drawn pictograms, which illustrate the verb and tell a story.