Created by Mike Black, a London-based graphic and web designer, Blockforest is a whimsical printmaking journey through his love for nature and folklore. Armed with a small A4 etching press, copious amounts of ink, and an army of brayers, Mike creates from his home in South London, blending cute animals, horror pop-culture, and mythology, to make linocut prints and cards that are cute, creepy, and often a blurring of the two.
A graduate of the London College of Fashion with a degree in Fashion PR, Mike is no stranger to the creative industries. But it wasn’t until he found linocut printmaking back in 2016, when looking for an artistic outlet from the then day-to-day office job, that things began to fall into place artistically.
“I’ve never been amazing at drawing or painting, I’m too much of a perfectionist and get frustrated that it isn’t looking how I want it to immediately. But with linocut, I found a process that allowed me to loosely sketch, alter, then transfer to a block and refine through the actual carving of the piece. It allows me to explore the imperfections in my work, that are inherent to linocut printmaking, and learn from them.”
After creating more cutesy designs for the first couple of years, it was while participating in the annual October Drawlloween challenges on Instagram that he began to introduce his love of the dark and macabre (developed from a childhood diet of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-files and 80s horror films) into his work. It was through this transition that Blockforest’s motto of ‘cute and creepy’ was born.
“I remember thinking, I love Halloween, let’s just give it a go and see what happens! And 31 pieces in 31 days, how hard can it be? That was an experience, but I found challenging myself to create every day really honed my craft and I loved the results so much that it spun me off in a really different direction.”
The horror and folklore themes have stuck, with creepy spins on traditional greetings cards, including a popular Krampus card last Christmas, a couple of Valentines and Mother’s Day cards, and more recently a set of portraits based on spirit guides, and a series of bookmarks inspired by Gothic film and literature.
Blockforest is very much a creative journey and Mike is planning some larger and more ambitious pieces throughout the course of this year.
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