Today we were introduced to one of the printing techniques, lino prints. And illustrator Nick Morley came and talked to us, showed as his work, he told us that he has been trained as a fine artist but he then decided to concentrate and make sure that he is really really good at one particular thing, which is lino cut, and this is what he is now famous for. This is inspirational, as recently we need to do our university application, and I am worrying so much about what I should do and what I will become in the future, and now I think I should just learn everything that i can get access to well, and eventually I will find out what I am capable of doing.
Going back to the linocutting technique, we need specific tools for it, we need lino tools and lino. The blades come in different shape and sizes, we can alter the lines created by the tools by pressing it down harder or lighter.
When we are inking the image that we created, a roller is needed, should take a small amount of ink, roll to spread it out until the surface of that patch of ink is not sticky anymore, we can roll it on to the lino.
Finally printing on a sheet of paper, we need to make sure the image is in the right places, again we had a choice of 2 colours black and red, so this need to be taken in consideration as well. The design should also include a letter press of a number and some laser cut shapes.
For different finish texture, we can either press the paper using a clean roller, or a wooden spoon, which would create a very hand make organic feel, or we can put it under the press to get a perfect sharp block of colour.
I have designed an image about 'time', so I am cutting the annal ring on tree trunks to represent a clock.
I used different blades to create the lines on the image. I tried the print using both red and black ink, although black looks really nice on its own, I think red would look nicer in the composition with other shapes.
I printed the pattern on paper using the roller, because I like how it still gets most of the ink onto the paper evenly and it is not completely covered like it would if going through the press. there are still some time white spaces due to the texture of the paper, and i think this looks really nice.
This is the Final out come, and I think it is quite successful. I like how the letter pressed 3 is a bit darker, as i pressed it harder and probably a little black ink has been mixed with the red, this wasn't done on purpose but it lead to a nice outcome.
however because we are using ink, it is quite hard to keep the white surfaces clean, so we really need to be careful not to hold the paper if the hands are dirty.