At the start of 2010 i found myself in need of a challenge, and so i embarked on a project to document every bus trip that i took during the year in the form of a lino print.

I'm an illustrator by trade, but i was so busy illustrating that I wasn't really doing much observational drawing any more. Plus I really fancied getting to grips with a new [ish] skill. And lino printing is a fairly easy thing to set up, at least to begin with...

I decided that each print would be A5, in a limited edition of 13, to celebrate the fact that the route i travel most is the 13/13A. It's a good job I don't live in Headingley and travel on the number 97 all the time...

Now the year is up and all the prints from the project are posted here, in journey order.

Some of the prints are a bit all over the shop if I'm honest. Some aren't even that good. Some are pleasing in places, and one or two make me very, very happy. Several of them have left me feeling utterly exasperated and seriously thinking of jacking the whole thing in.

But I didn't, and here they are. Inspired by Billy Childish, I have resolved not to think of them in terms of success or failures - they just are what they are and I've been trying to learn to do them better and to make something worth looking at...

Friday, February 11, 2011

Bus Trips 33 & 34



bus trips 33 and 34 - into town to meet with matt ward and then lunch at roots and fruits with james c.

all very enjoyable.

i'd gone with a plan for these trips and prints - to draw my reflection in the stairwell screen on both journeys, as i was planning a haircut whilst i was out as well, so it'd give a nice 'before and after' thing. sadly, i was in a bit of a rush, hopped onto the 35 from moortown corner and then realised that has no stairwell.
another lesson learned - don't try to pre-plan these things. or at least don't rely on those plans...
that trip on the 35 was notable for the sub Daily Mail conversation and general Meldrewisms of the old folks sat behind me.

i quite like these. they're not much of a development from no.27, but i think that they sit nicely together, and the text at the bottom is good.
no great registration problems this time either, so i'm getting the hang of the press.
i like the slightly jungle-y feel of the upright poles, they're like hanging vines.
the furniture of buses is actually quite weird when you start to look closely at it...

if the journeys were longer or i could draw quicker or if i felt confident to take photos on the bus then maybe i could add in the passengers... :-)

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