Nerd Time with Brianna

Recently, I heard that my application to a Banff Centre residency was not accepted. I had been... confident. I had seen myself there so clearly. And yet. 

But I've had an idea.

"It became a challenge, a play of sorts if you will to try and pack whole worlds of feeling into few words. And it somehow made me feel better knowing that I could make these emotions more compact. Easier to carry."

I write love letters to my parents on birthdays and parental celebration days. I write love letters to my friends via loooong text messages when they're having a bad week. I write love letters to professional acquaintances, which has occasionally shifted a relationship from professional acquaintance to friendship.

I've compiled a list of 8 amazing linocut artists that I follow on instagram, and I've included a little blurb with each about the thing I've borrowed, or want to borrow from them in the future.

The first time I carved a reduction linocut was a revelation. It was also the first time I printed a linocut from a Vandercook letterpress, so the revelations multiplied over one another to create a printmaking experience that has shaped my artistic practice ever since. Yeah. I love it.

For anyone who is curious about what exactly you do with a degree in fine art, and especially the people who are asked that question by well meaning but infuriating relatives

Penrose Press is a book arts practice by Brianna Tosswill in collaboration with various creatives in Canada. Its mandate is to present storytelling in beautiful, physical detail, and to amplify marginalized voices and perspectives. Art feeds empathy.

I've made some changes lately. Read about them here.

It took me years of dedicated practise to realize that there are techniques available to me in linocut that are unique and wonderful and better than drawing in certain respects. I’m here to share my most effective strategies with you so that you can have a similar experience and learn to love this medium like I do.

Linocut is a type of printmaking where you carve linoleum, yes, like the flooring material! And then make prints from your carving by rolling ink across the un-carved areas, and applying paper with pressure to transfer the ink.