Painting with linocutting?

The other WIP besides the new oil piece is this reductive linocut. I had done two layers before Chile and last night had proceeded with the next one.

First: the current layer in orange.

Fields, WIP (layer 3)
Linocut on Cartridge paper, 25x20cm

Now, that's a fairly graphic linocut. I was actually surprised to see it like that after having printed my edition of thirteen (for luck) sheets.

Surprised because the accumulated ultramarine, lemon yellow, orange looks rather messy like this:

Fields, WIP (three layers)
Linocut on Japanese paper, 25x20cm

Admittedly, the blue got a bit darker in value than planned, I mixed the yellow in various values and with differing amounts of whites - the idea was to get to a green for the forest in the background and a light, opaque field in the foreground. The idea is to add two more layers: a darker green and a dark purple. - It's the field image developed here.

The aim: to paint with linocutting. I.e., to trick the imagery away from sharp, distinct, graphic fields of colour to a much softer, painterly image. I remember the linocut that Tom bought a while back from the artist Ruth Robertson. So I thought, I could try and trick the medium into behaving like paint. Probably five layers (even with shading/dabbing) won't get me there; neither will it probably not get me there with the variety of cut marks and playing with the interplay of positive and negative spaces.

But: I'm having a good go at it nonetheless. It's actually very good fun. I am thoroughly enjoying the relief cutting by now and am almost sorry for progressing onto more experimental markmaking and collagraphs (glue, mold stuff onto the plate to print with collage). However, these tasks are giving me quite a good sense of what may be possible. I could spend far more time with this and am certain, that any art in future will be more hands on than merely holding a brush.

I like the process of losing fear and acquiring respect for a medium, its shticks and moods. I think that's also one of the reasons why I do like posting WIPs... to see where something goes, how it develops, falls aparts, changes form and character and so on.