Lino Printing Stock

After receiving advice from the print technicians at uni, it is clear that in order to get a clean, solid print from such a large scale lino, i should try and stick with heavyweight stock to avoid warping and bleeding from over inking.

From earlier lino tests, I thought it would be an interesting idea to print onto gold stock following the venetian and memory palace (gold being the colour the represent memory palaces) them running throughout my chosen author Italo Calvino's book: Invisible Cities.

During my small lino shell tests, i printed onto very shiny gold stock at the time and although this may have worked for the small shells i was printing, i thought that this mirrored gold card would be a ;little too much at the A2 scale i am wanting to print at.

Keeping this in mind I managed to source some lovely gold A2 stock online in a variety of finishes which I can text and choose from when it comes to printing:

Gold Leaf
Description: This is a beautiful 250gsm card with a true gold leaf effect on one side. It is really stunning to the eye having an almost brushed or textured finish. It has a bit of a pearlescent feel to it although we see it as being more metallic than pearlescent.

Gold Satin

Description: Single sided metallic gold card with a silky lustre and very smooth finish. 300 microns thick. One side gold, the reverse is a matt white card finish. This is a very interesting and unusual item as it gives off a fabulous rich gold colour. 

Gold Embossed

Description: At 300gsm / 390 microns, this card has a shiny embossed canvas metallic gold finish on one side with the reverse side being regular white card. A rich gold colour and nice canvas style embossing make this a great textured card for picture mounting, as a craft card or for wedding stationery etc. Quite stunning.

All 3 of these stocks look great and are a great weight for printing. I plan on trying all three when I begin to print my linos and hope the gold stock background will help my 'colour gradient/merging' pop with the details of my cuts and design.

As well as gold I will also be planning on printing my colour merging/gradient of two colours onto quality white stock which i will buy from the uni shop and library.

As well as using the colour merging of two colours on each lino plate, I plan on printing in just black as well. I am worried that the colour may be too much/not enough to pick out the details i hope to have on my lino, therefore i know printing in just black ink will overcome this and will hopefully look really striking on the gold stock as well as plain white. After all it in the content of the design that matters and the clean finish of the print.

After trying multiple colours, i will then be able to decide what looks best for my finals.