Lino Printing - Giraffe

Now that I've completed the Manchester united print I decided to try the do a print using the sketch of a giraffe that i posted earlier.
Here is the sketch of the giraffe and the sketch transferred to some tracing paper.

The following two images show the outline of the giraffe on the lino block along with the block after the first cut.

This time around I decided to do two prints, one on white paper and one (a double print) on black paper. I also decided to keep things simple and print with two colours. Here are the resulting prints -

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.

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.