Clare Melinsky is an illustrator using lino cut prints.

Her colourful work shows a graphic simplicity across a wide range of different commissions including book covers, postage stamps, packaging and editorial. The natural world is a common theme, also historical subjects.

Clare graduated in Theatre Design at Central School of Art in London, now Central St. Martins. Having beeen introduced to lino cut in the foundation year, carried on with lino cut after graduating. A publisher friend, Richard Garnett at Macmillan, asked if he could use one of these motifs on a book cover: a first step into the world of editorial illustration. At the same time Mark Reddy, a contemporary at Central, was starting out in advertising, and he, too, commissioned a lino cut image for a client, pointing the way to illustration in the commercial world. Light bulb moment: Clare would be an illustrator.

At this point Clare moved from London with her partner to live in south-west Scotland, on a remote 12 acre small-holding in the hills. Sheep, goats, a dairy cow and calves, hens, two children, geese, a pony. It was a good lifestyle choice, because it meant they could afford to live off Clare’s very small earnings in the early years. She continued to get regular commissions from the first contacts she had made in London: Radio Times, Sunday Times, New Society, Macmillan publishing. The turning point came in 1983 when Brian Grimwood at the Central Illustration Agency invited Clare to join them.

The CIA has kept her busy with a great variety of work ever since. And home is in a less remote spot in Dumfriesshire, but still very rural.

Process

Once Clare has studied the brief, she has a conversation with the client to make sure they both understand what they are looking for. Rough drawings are shown, changed and finally agreed upon. The image is transferred onto a piece of linoleum. Clare uses lino bought from a flooring supplier by the metre.

As it is a print, the lino cut is a mirror image of the final artwork. The image is cut into the lino using small v-shaped gouges. The areas removed won’t print. Ink is rolled on the remaining surface, and a print is taken. So the whole process calls for simplification and clarity. Less is more.

Originally most of her work was black and white, but now most images are very colourful as they are commissioned for book covers or packaging. One block can be rolled up with different colours; where the colours merge makes an interesting blend. Or one image might be composed of two or three registered blocks, each one rolled with a different coloured ink. Where two colours overlap, it creates a third colour.

The final artwork is scanned, and a digital file supplied.

Some clients

Royal Mail

Historic Royal Palaces

M&S

Waitrose

Bodyshop

Cowshed Spa

Historic Scotland

Fine Cheese Co.

Artisan Biscuits

Macsween of Edinburgh

Pollocks Toy Museum

Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons

Editorial:

Folio Society

NY Times

Penguin Random House

Bloomsbury

Walker Books

Country Living Magazine

The Telegraph gardening

Readers Digest

Financial Times