Lino Cutting: Tests and Experimentation

After attending the linocut printing and mono-printing workshop at uni, i decided to have a go at experimenting for myself, taking my lino cutting skills further and try and get my head around how to apply colour across 2 lino cut plates and attempt registration.

Process
I managed to source some small pieces of easy cut lino and some cheap cutting tools from the Internet. At this stage i haven't managed to buy any of my own printing inks so decided to have a go at printing with just acrylic.

Using examples from my visual journal, I traced my images onto tracing paper for a graphite transfer onto the lino. I worked out my separation by deciding what areas were for what colour, helping me plan on what areas of lino to cut. Using tracing paper to plan my compositions helped in this stage of the process as I was able to register my designs a lot easier.

The lino I sourced is very dark in colour which was a problem as in low light I was unable to see my composition on the lino surface. This is a big thing to consider when creating my finals. I am not sure where to get soft cut lino in a light enough colour so may resort to hessian backed lino as i know this tends to be light grey in colour and will be much easier to see my design in order to cut. I am worried that if I do decide to cut into hessian backed lino instead of soft cut, it may be harder to cut but i will deal with that when it comes to it.

After transferring my designs onto the lino, I began cutting. I am not sure if it is the quality of the tools i have for cutting or the rubbery consistency of the soft cut lino, but i actually struggled cutting out my compositions. Gouging the lino was fine, but removing the gouged strips from the lino if cut too deep was an issue and resorted to using my scalpel to get all the bits out....maybe this is how the pros do it?

Once the linos were cut, I was able to begin printing. I didn't have a roller at this stage, so used a sponge to apply my acrylic ink, trying my best to get an even surface. i layered my stock on top of the inked lino and rubbed the back of the stock with a spoon applying even pressure (a trick i had been told by the uni technician during the workshop).

Once one lot of lino prints in my first colour were completed and dry, I then used my tracing paper images to reference where to place the second lino composition on top. This was extremely fiddly and i couldn't seem to get it right at all. It is clear that in order to do a 2 colour plate separation, I will need the exact same sized linos to help with registration.

Results

Thoughts
This experimentation was a bit of an eyeopener for me. I may need to ask for more advice/research thoroughly into the best way to register my lino plates if this is the way I am wanting to get my 2 colours into my final prints. It was a bit of a nightmare and the results are obviously messy. Despite this I am glad I gave it a go, it is all practise at the end of the day and I haven't been defeated yet with regards to this printing technique.

From my experiment results I am worried about getting a clean print from the lino. I thought i cut into the surrounding areas of my composition deep enough so that the gouge lines around the edges wouldn't take any of the acrylic when being sponged on. I was wrong and because these areas did get inked up despite how hard I tried to avoid them, they transferred onto the stock when printing. I can see how this effect could look quite nice in some cases, however I would like my final imagery to be really clean, so need to figure out a way of avoiding this in the final process. I could maybe create a mask by cutting a hole close to the size of my composition into a larger piece of stock, ink up my plate and then lay the mask on before printing. This way the marks around the edges should be covered up by the mask and not transfer on to the stock or appear in the final print.

When attempting my final compositions, preparation is key, therefore if I am meticulous in my planning and registration prep- hopefully my prints will come out a lot more exact and clean. If not, there are other possible ways of creating my prints that I should consider:

• 1 heavily detailed linocut plate with 2 colours inked on in areas or maybe even a colour merge.
• Printing my 2 plates on separate pieces of stock and scanning them in to be digitally arranged together. (will this be a waste of an analogue technique?)
• Printing 1 plate in one colour and scanning in and adding my second colour digitally in specific areas.
• Printing smaller cut "floating" stamps in one colour, then printing a larger detailed linocut plate over the top in order to get the 2 colour separation. This may be the way forward but is very likely to be an even bigger nightmare when tackling the registration process.