Linocuts

Sometimes what I do- Fabric Collage- reminds me of linocuts.  Since a successful linocut print relies so heavily on the juxtaposition of texture and pattern, it resembles the same technique of placing different textures and patterns of  fabrics in relation to each other for effectively portraying an image.  This example by Pablo Picasso demonstrates the use of multiple patterns to achieve the desired image.

"Still Life with Glass Under the Lamp"

And another example by artist Monica Miller

 

In a linocut, there is, out of necessity,  no  blurring of lines between different patterns of the cuts, since it is used as a printing block.  Because linocut prints are often black and white, they require very specific direction of cuts adjacent to each other  to delineate a specific image.  This is also true of fabric collage.  The medium itself dictates that textures or patterns placed next to each other are distinct in order to define image, background, shadow, etc. Using batik fabrics can alter this a bit because their patterns are a bit more blurry to begin with. Batiks give more of a watercolor effect.  ~LW