2023 Pastels Competition John Sherry 3rd Place Winner

John Sherry is a self-described late bloomer, and then some. "There are late bloomers," he says, "and then there's me - almost never bloomed!"

Growing up in Ohio, Sherry's mother was a highly acclaimed artist, and while he had an impulse to express his own artistic creativity through painting, he thought of it as something that would happen sometime in the future. "But after years of postponing," he says, "I came to realize that I didn't know how much future I may have, so I dove in."

The Oregon-based artist's medium of choice is pastel on paper. "The colors and pigments are amazing," Sherry says. "A mark made with pastel is so tactile, so immediate. There is no mixing, no waiting for it to dry, you lay down a stroke and that's that."

Cell phone in hand, Sherry is always on the lookout for interesting subject matter to photograph that might inspire his work — landscapes, urban scenes, still lifes. His early pieces were impressionistic leaning toward abstract, but as his style and technique developed, he focused more on what he calls "the lure of ordinary objects."

He says, "I'd much rather make the mundane appear interesting through art than to try to replicate a spectacular sunset. Painting to me is about expressing my version of the object or scene through color and shape. It may start with a photograph, but that's just a suggestion for what might follow on the paper."

Sherry wants the viewer to engage with his work. "I feel it's important to leave things out, and to let the viewer's mind connect the dots. To me, that makes art so much more personal than a photograph. It should be interesting and beautiful, yes, but I also hope to create an emotional connection with the viewer," he says. "That is the ultimate goal, and when successful, the ultimate reward."

WEBSITE: www.johnsherryart.com

INSTAGRAM: @johnsherryart

John Sherry | 2023 Pastels Competition, 3rd Place Winner

3rd Place Winning Entry

BNSF

Pastel, 24" x 18"

Linocut Artists

Linocuts: The Art of Carving

Creating a linocut block is an exercise in subtraction, reversing how an artist typically thinks about art. Instead of adding an image to a surface with paint, pencil, charcoal, or other media, the linocut artist carves out the negative space of an image, leaving the positive space untouched. The process takes careful thought and a nimble touch since once the block is carved, mistakes can't be corrected. When carving is complete, the linocut is inked and the image impressed onto paper or fabric either by hand or with a printing press.

Because it's challenging to carve fine lines in a linoleum block, artists often create bold, simplified imagery, resulting in a vivid contrast between light and dark, with thicker, stronger lines producing powerful images with geometric and graphic characteristics.

Here are five contemporary linocut artists who are definitely worth a look.

Rachael Hibbs

Rachael Hibbs, a linocut artist who works from her home studio in London, discovered printmaking about five years ago when she worked as an art technician at a school with an etching press. She was hooked as soon as she made her first linocut print. Since then, she has transformed a printmaking hobby into her own business.

Having grown up in rural Oxfordshire, Hibbs finds inspiration in flora and fauna, creating images of British botanicals and wildlife in her work.

Her artistic style focuses primarily on intricately carved monochromatic images, printed in black or metallic inks. She often leaves her backgrounds blank to show the texture of the papers she prints on, including sustainable handmade papers that enhance the character and texture of her work; or she will print an image with solid background colors which add to the overall impact of her pieces.

Find her work at: @rhlprints or rhlprints.com.

Facing page: Banyan Bonsai, 24" x 16"

Top: Foragers, 19.75" x 19.75"

Center: Lilith's Garden, 15.75" x 19.75"

Bottom left: Feast Your Eyes, 10" x 12"

Bottom right: Metamorphosis, 15.75" x 12.5"

All images © Rachael Hibbs, shared with permission

Guy Smart

Guy Smart is a self-taught linocut printmaker based in Bristol, U.K. Being furloughed from his job during the pandemic lockdown gave him the opportunity to focus on his love for printmaking, a skill his mother taught him as a child. Since then he's been creating a variety of prints that include striking nautical, flora, and optical illusion designs, among others. Many were inspired by his travels to South Africa where he saw an assortment of marine life, as well as colorful patterns and textures in underwater plants.

You can find his work at gdsmprints.square.site, @GDSM.prints, and gdsm.prints on Facebook.

Linocut artist Gareth Barnes is originally from New Zealand (or, as he puts it, the land of Frodo, Brett, Jermaine, Dr. Alan Grant, Jacinda Ardern, and sausage sizzles), and lives in Leeds, England today. Formerly an illustrator, he discovered printmaking two and a half years ago, throwing himself into the process of creating linocuts and enjoying the final results.

Barnes' creativity is expressed in a wide variety of subjects, from fish, rhinos, and other animals, to a cat lady, Jurassic Park, quirky space imagery, old television sets adorned with a variety of creatures, and surreal prints that make you look twice (at least) at his work.

When asked about his linocut subjects, Barnes replies, "I get a lot of fun dreaming up ideas when I'm out walking the Velvet Dragon (whippet), or driving the car listening to Billy Ocean, and getting them carved out. I play around with a broad spectrum of subject matter and like to combine them in curious ways. It makes it more fun!"

See more of his prints at @spindle_printer and www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SpindlePrint

Top left: Welcome Home, 11.25" in diameter

Top right: Play, 5.25" x 5.25"

Right: The Collector, 11" x 15.375

All images © Gareth Barnes, shared with permission

François Pache is a linocut artist based in France who makes images of all things Japanese. During childhood, he would draw for hours inspired by illustrations and Japanese prints in books. At the age of seven, he began teaching himself the Japanese language which he still practices each day, and he has often traveled to Japan.

Today he is an accomplished artist, carving linocuts of Japanese people and scenes with complexity and intricacy. Pache's first linocut, and the one that inspired him to devote himself to this art form, was a recreation of Katsushika Hokusai's most famous woodblock print, "The Great Wave," one of 36 views he carved of Mount Fuji.

He says of his artwork, "In linocut, my favorite part is the engraving. This is the moment when you give life to the lino and the image takes shape."

Pache met his wife, Sophie, in art school and discovered their shared love of Japan. They combined their skills and launched a website in two languages devoted to educating people about Japanese cuisine, www.cuisinejapon.fr and japan-taste.com. More recently they created Japanese-linocut.com, a site to showcase and sell limited editions of his linocut creations.

Find Pache's linocut art at @japanese.linocut, japanese-linocut.com, and on Etsy, JapaneseLinocut

Cal Russell is an Edinburgh-based artist who primarily makes linocut prints. His works often feature architectural subjects taken from his own photographs, skillfully carved to emphasize the contrasts between lights and darks, creating images filled with complex and fascinating patterns.

Russell studied illustration at Falmouth School of Art and completed a master's in contemporary art at the Edinburgh College of Art. He had done papercutting work for more than ten years before discovering linocut printing during the 2020 lockdown. He learned techniques by studying the work of linocut artists he admired, watching YouTube videos, and experimenting on his own..

"Initially, I got into printmaking purely as a way of making copies of my papercut images, but I soon fell in love with lino cutting and printing as a process. I adapted quickly from cutting paper to cutting lino, and I really enjoy the fact that working with lino is so DIY and direct. Apart from some carving tools, a roller, and a wooden spoon, it doesn't require any special machinery or chemicals like other printmaking," he says. His work is available at www.callum-russell.co.uk, @cal_russell, and on Etsy, callumrussellart.