Project 8 – Reduction Linocut

Reduction Method – Learn how to cut and print a multi-coloured linoprint from a single block of lino.

The subject matter for this exercise is the theme ‘life form’. Here in the autumnal New Forest it’s Pannage Season, the time of year when pigs are let loose to forage for acorns and beautiful and strange fungi mysteriously emerge from the warm damp soil.

I explored the forest, taking photos, making sketches and noting ideas in my sketchbook, concentrating my findings on Pigs, Acorns and Fungi.

At the suggestion of my tutor I am trying to add more of my findings and descriptive texts to a sketchbook rather than my learning log. So plenty of supporting work is available to view in my sketchbook (hardcopy only).

External Courses – While exploring and collecting my images I have been on two supplementary printmaking courses run at the local FE college. On both I have taken the opportunity to further my exploration of my ‘Pannage’ theme. These courses were a very beneficial supplement to this OCA course, it was encouraging to be able to seek immediate advice and discuss the work of other print makers and artists and fellow students face to face.

Woodcut – I had expected this technique to be very similar to linocut, but found it quite a different experience. Different cutting angles, mark making techniques and the different density of the working surface. I achieved finer cuts and lines, and took the opportunity to be experimental with marks; but ‘no’ to my cutting technique and aching wrists. I got a better print than with lino, both paper and ink I had used before; the print surface was much smaller and I did have use of a lovely handmade wooden mushroom baren, maybe that helped.

My poor little piggy with wonky nose and a double chin, he’s eaten too many acorns!

An Introduction to Printmaking – including monoprint, collograph, screen printing and linocut. I chose to explore the acorns further, mainly with a reduction print, (I did try other processes) that would potentially help with my planning for this project. Having made a seperate sketch for each colour layer, it was suggested and was of help, that I worked to a sketch of how I wanted the print to look (sort of) when finished. To view my sketch as a guide to work with and into; sketch to print. Another bit of advice was to make 20 prints to allow for all sorts of errors.

What I have learnt from these courses -planning is essential; simplification of the image and colour; time required for each layer to be cut and to dry; 20+ prints and registration is time consuming, but a necessity to get a few or even one good print; I need to get comfortable with using better quality ink; good cutting away of the empty background is essential; a completed drawing with colour can be used as a guide to completing each layer.

Project 8: Continuing to build on my sketches and ideas, I explored pigs and mushrooms for my reduction linocut theme; drawing into photocopies of my sketches, further sketching and planning my use of colour, number of layers and potential drying times.

I see myself as either a full on bright colour that can’t stay still, or someone thats totally chilled and happy to have a snooze in the sun. I love the outdoors and the countryside that surrounds me. The pigs of the forest seem to reflect me, they snuffle around, dart about in the undergrowth, not a care in the world; they like a snooze in the sun, but if you dare get close, (not recommended for the inexperienced) they do like a good tickle behind the ear. This is what I hope to convey in my finished lino print, a chilled, happy contented pig, in love with his surroundings.

Playing around with Adobe Photoshop filters I discovered ‘Cut Out’ and use this to simplify and extract blocks of colour from my sketch. I see this as potential tool for future use in colour extraction.

Ink – I made the decision to use oil based inks, this means much more planning as I need to build in extra drying time. My colours, the warm red, orange and brown of autumn and the cool of green as a contrast. Layers 1-4 the inks were all mixed to achieve the colour that I wanted to use (messy job), extender was added to the green to give my background a more opaque transparent appearance that I didn’t think I could achieve by mixing with white. Just need the courage to at some point use it over the top of another colour!

Lino – I have used Easy Cut Lino (as suggested by my Tutor), yes it is softer and I have managed to cut finer lines, maybe my experience with the woodcut tools has helped as well. What I don’t like is that I find it can tear when cutting and easily mark in places I don’t want it to, again I give it the benefit of the doubt, will persevere with it through this part of the course and treat is a continuation of my learning curve .

Press – I have managed to borrow a printmaking press, adding another learning curve to this assignment. For registration purposes I decided I would use a board and pins and tabs, had I followed advice from on-line videos the lino would have been stuck to a board with the pins (note – need more pins). However I removed the lino to clean, re-ink and cut which has led to some issues with my registration.

I struggled to set the rollers to the correct height, I was a bit wary of tightening the screws and not winding them evenly. On one occassion the printing plate moved as the support wheels underneath fell off! Tighten the nuts! It’s all a matter of growing confidence in using equipment and tools that are new to me.

Paper – As this is to be a run of 20 prints I have decided to stick with the one paper type, Zerkall.

Layer 1 – I began my layers with the white spots on the mushrooms, these areas were created by cutting the lino and using the colour of the paper to show through.

Phthalo Green was too dark as a base layer so I mixed it with extender to reduce the strength giving a lighter background to print over with the next colour.

Layer 2 – I had mixed too much ink for layer 1 so decided, against plan, to add another layer, a slightly darker shade of green to create added background depth. I liked the way that the darker green created a shadow effect to the background but wasn’t sure about the area top right. In subsequent layers I tried to make it look like another mushroom but failed miserably, cutting away too much of the lino before applying the next layer of ink.

Layer 3 – At this point I made a near fatal error, cutting away too much of the excess lino, as I was wielding the scissors I suddenly realised that I was using the angles of the corners of my lino plate to help with my registration.

For this layer I chose to tone down the shade of orange from my test version (right), this was a mix of Napthol Red and Diarylide Yellow to which I added Raw Umber and White, to remove the brightness.

To confirm my way forward I returned to my sketches and drew into a test print with felt pen, at this point I decided that a light brown on the pig was preferable to the red, another layer! The missing red on the mushroom referenced the decay that I had seen when researching my theme, this, I felt, would be better depicted with light brown.

I am pleased with the effect of the grass that pokes up around the pigs head, but wished that at this stage I’d not cut away parts of the mushroom stalks and underbelly, the background colour poking through looks wrong!

Layer 4 -I worried that this layer would be too light a colour in contrast to the orange and not give good coverage. Instead I found that by overlaying this on the orange it added to the softening effect (changing the reflected colour I assume), that I was looking for when re-mixing my orange ink.

My mistakes here are with cutting away, the lines depicting the eyes, mouth and nose are too thin and the outline of the right-hand mushroom has disintegrated as I cut.

Layer 5 – Now it all starts to go wrong; I am finding that my registration is starting to fail, the press starts misbehaving and the red ink appears too tacky and a bit lumpy. Despite working in the garden cabin, I do have a heater to keep things a bit warm and the inks I have kept in the house so assume it’s not a temperature issue. I changed ink, same make, slightly different shade, and one that came in a tube not a tin, I definately prefer the way that I work with the tubes, much less messy and the ink seems to have a different consistency, maybe because I don’t have to dig down past a gooey skin layer that forms on top of the tinned ink.

I have also noticed that my lino is getting thinner and slightly mishapen, too many passes through the press! In an effort to at least part correct this I placed a sheet of card between the press bed and my printing board lifting the lino to the same level as the press plate guides.

Layer 6 – Finally, my black outline, I have some good registrations and some poor. As mentioned before, the eyes, mouth and nose could have been thicker, while some of the outlines could have been thinner and smoother cut, not easy when you feel that the plate is disintigrating as you work.

I was looking forward to translating my sketches and ideas into print. I had planned as carefully as I could or thought that I should. Though these plans did change as I worked, a bad trait or just me and the way that I prefer to work, evolution in motion!

I decided from the start, after taking on board my learnings from the ‘acorns’ to complete 20 prints, but by the end I have found this a bit exhausting, with so many layers of ink (less next time, more overlapping and opacity maybe), cutting and registration errors and my disintegrating lino.

However, despite these trials and errors, I have finally arrived to 20 finished prints, not all of the same quality or consistency, but ones that I hope depicts my chilled out Pannage Pig that I set out to convey.

Review Project 8 – I feel that this has been a long slog, but looking back it was mainly down to my decision to go with 6 layers of colour. I’ve struggled at times with equipment, but realise that its all a big learning curve. What I do need to focus on is how I want to move forward, explore more artists work, read more and actually take on board what I have learnt, experienced and noted, be it be from others work or that of my own and my discoveries. I’m still enjoying this printmaking lark and its a new year soon.

Additonal work – Fabric – I wondered how printing on fabric would turn out; I know that the ink I was using wasn’t fabric ink, but in my enquiring mind I thought to give it a go.

Of interest was not the print on fabric, but the second print that I took from the lino onto paper, I found that the textures / patterns of the fabric transfered itself from the plate onto the paper. Not sure what I can do with it, but for me an interesting element to my work.

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