The story of a reduction linoprint

Part four: nearly finished

Jun 29, 2023

In my last post I said that things would get more simple from now on, because I would be printing in single colours across the whole block. Well, up to a point…
The thing is, the detail and interest has to come from somewhere, and if it’s not coming from the inking then it has to come from the carving. The remaining layers are all going to involve a LOT of fiddly carving.

In case it’s not obvious, the above video is at 10 times actual speed. I swap back and forth between two different cutters during it.

All lino carving leaves little bits of lino on your block that need careful removal before printing. Tiny chips from this sort of carving are especially challenging - the little devils hide in nooks and crannies emerging only to stick in the ink and show up on your print. Simply brushing or tapping the block is not going to dislodge them. I operate a two stage sweep: first I vacuum (yes you heard me, vacuum) the block with the brush attachment on a hand held cleaner. Then (and this is the clever bit because I haven’t heard of anyone else doing this, unless I told them about it) I roll over a soft, dry ink roller and the static will usually pick up the last tiniest chips. You can see one on the roller in the photo below. It looks insignificant but would make a right mess of a print.

So with lots of carving in between - about 60-90 minutes for each layer - I print successive layers. Here are layers five to seven.

The previous four layers were shown in the second and third posts in this series.

It is hopefully becoming pretty clear what the scene is now. It’s another image from our Caribbean cruise earlier this year. It’s definitely making a change from my usual English woodland; the different leaf shapes have required a new vocabulary of carving and marks.

In my next post I’ll have the big reveal of the final print (NB saying something like this is what is known as making yourself a hostage to fortune). I’ll also be listing some materials and equipment suppliers for any printmakers, or aspiring printmakers, reading this.

Wish me luck and I’ll see you soon. Meanwhile if you have any questions about the process do leave a comment - you never know other readers might be wondering the same thing and would like to hear the answer.

Jane

Dapple Scrumping

Discussion about this post