Sunday, May 27, 2007

Lino Printing - The Final Print

Its been a while since my last update but I've completed the last print. So I'll talk through the process for this print. This is going to be a short enough post as I'm basically repeating the process for the 3rd time. As usual I spread the paint out and used the rolled it out to get an even layer on the roller.


At this point I rolled the paint onto the lino block.



Here is the collection of completed prints.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Lino Cutting - Carving the third and final print

Its time to carve the lino block for the third and final print. The plan was to carve around the crest on the lino block leaving an outline which I will print using black paint. I didn't sketch the areas to cut onto the lino block, I just started carving. I was really just removing some of the lino block to leave the outline of the image.

Here you can see I've started carving the third print. I've left the outline of the text on the base of the crest.



I've took a close up picture to show me carving the text on the top of the crest.



It took me about 4 hours to carve the third print as there was lots of small areas to be carved so it was a slow process. Almost there...



And finally complete.



Now I'm ready to do the final print but I don't have the time right now so it will have to wait until another day.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Lino Printing - The Second Lino Print

I've just completed the second print using red paint. I realise now that I should have done some prints in different colours to experiment a little bit but I've decided to continue as planned with my 3 colour print - yellow, red and black.

As you can see from the two pictures below I put some paint down on the plastic sheet and then rolled it out until it was evenly spread.


Some people spread the paint out with a palette knife, but I find my approach works out OK. Although it takes a bit of rolling to get a nice even spread. The following picture shows my lino block after I have rolled it with paint. There are a couple of areas around the outside of the crest that picked up some paint. This is partly due to my efforts rolling but also these areas were not carved as deep as some of the others.


Once again I used a rolling pin to apply pressure to the page after I had placed it on the lino block. The following few pictures show the print as it was peeled away from the lino block.




I continued with the above process using all of the prints that I had created with the first lino cut. As I explained earlier I didn't experiment with different colours but I did experiment with different amounts of paint on the lino block. Producing prints with faint colours and producing prints with strong colours. Here is a pictures of the completed prints.


So one print left to do, that will be a black print. Basically giving an outline to the crest.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Lino Cutting - Carving the Second Print (Part 2)

I've finished carving the lino block for the second print. Don't have too much to say about it basically continued in the same manner as the previous day. The footballs were a bit tricky as they were very small areas to be carved. Here is a picture of the completed carving.


The following image shows the inner part of the crest and the devil. I found some of this carving to be quite difficult especially the small areas.


Here is another image showing the detail on the top half of the crest. You can also see the slightly modified design of the football.


That's all for today. My next update should be of the second print in red.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Lino Cutting - Carving the Second Print (Part 1)

I carved the lino block for the second print a couple of days ago but I did not have time to update until now. As noted in one of my earlier posts it would be better to draw the full design in permanent marker at the beginning. However this is not the approach that I took.

To begin I had to lino up my sketch on top of the lino block so I could draw the remaining parts of the design. It took me a while to get this matched up correctly but in the end it was almost right. Once I had the tracing paper with my sketch lined up I taped it securely to the lino block. This can been seen in the image below:


With the sketch securely in place the next step was to draw over the outline of the image. When this was completed I removed the tracing paper and I could see the image outline on the lino block. Next I went over the image outline with a permanent marker. You have to be careful doing this as you could quite easily disturb the outline of the image. In the image below you can see the outline of the image on the lino block and also the areas that I have completed with the permanent marker.


Going over the outline in permanent maker was a slow enough process. When I got as far as the footballs on either side of the crest I decided to make a small change to my design. The design was too small and intricate. It was going to be impossible to carve the lino block with that design. I removed one of the outer rings which allowed me to make the football design slightly larger. The image below shows the completed permanent marker sketch on the lino block. If you look at the footballs on either side you will notice that one of the outer rings from the initial design is missing.


I continued carving the lino block but did not complete it on this sitting. As the lettering and the design is quite intricate I was very slow carving it. Here is what I've done so far:


Thats all for now I'll update again once I get finishing cutting the lino block. I forgot to mention that this print will be in red so the areas that I am carving will be in yellow.