Lino Printing - Pop Art Giraffe

Its been a while since I've posted! Not done any lino prints since I last posted but I did come across a print on the Internet that I think is interesting. Its a pop art print of a giraffe, similar to my giraffe print except using 4 colours and more detail. Check it out here -

Pop Art Giraffe

That's all for now

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Lino Printing - The First Lino Print (Part 2)

A Quick Update - After the looking over my prints when they had dried I decided that I needed to do something about the white background. As I mentioned in some earlier posts I felt the background looked very bare. It was too late to change the background as the lino block had already been cut. So I decided to purchase some black paper and to do some more first prints. I'm not sure if applying paint again and doing more prints will degrade the lino block but I decided to give it a go.

Here is a picture of the lino block and the first print on black paper -



I did a few more prints on the black paper which I think they have worked out pretty well. It look much better than the black background.



Now I'm thinking that maybe I should have experimented with a few more colors instead of yellow!

Lino Printing - The First Lino Print

I've already spotted some mistakes that I've made or maybe not mistakes but at least things that I would do differently next time. I think I should have done some sort of design for the background instead of leaving it blank.
The first print will be in yellow. I got a sheet of glass to roll the paint on. Basically I put a bit of paint on the sheet of glass and rolled it until it was spread evenly on the glass and roller.

Once I had an even spread of paint on the roller I rolled it onto the lino block. I placed the block on some old newspaper as I figured things could get a bit messy. I rolled the paint onto the block and covered it evenly. In this picture you can see what the block looked like once it had been rolled.


A this point I gently placed a large sheet of white paper over the lino block. The first time I did this I didn't like up the edges of the paper with the edges of the lino block, this meant I wouldn't be able to do a second print on top of it as I'd have no way of knowing where to place the paper. I didn't have a baren (the tool used to press the paper) so I had to improvise. I decided to use a rolling pin. The following picture isn't very descriptive but you get the general idea. I rolled over the paper with the rolling pin. The rolling pin is quite large so it gave an even spread and covered all of the lino block.


I rolled over it a few times putting some weight on the roller. At this point I was ready to remove the paper from the lino block. I took a sequence of pictures as I peeled the paper back from the lino block.

Almost there...

Here's the print -

So I continued this process doing lots of prints. I think I finished up with about 12 prints.


I do not think the prints look very well on the white paper, maybe this is because of all the white space that I left. I'm considering printing the lino block again on some different colour paper. That's all for now!

Lino Cutting - Getting Started

I've spent some time trying to decide what to do for my first print. Here is a sketch of a giraffe that I did some time ago.


The giraffe was my first choice for the lino print. I couldn't decide on what colours to use for the giraffe print. So I changed my mind and decided to do the Manchester United crest. A quick search on Google images for Manchester united crest gives a nice selection of images to base my sketch on.

While the crest is a bit more complicated the colour choice is simple. After sketching out the crest on an A4 sheet of paper and I went over it with a fine permanent maker.


At this point I got some tracing paper and copied the crest. I didn't feel confident about sketching the crest on the lino, as it took me ages to get the crest looking right on paper. The idea behind the permanent marker outline was to make it easier to trace.

At this point I was ready to get started. I looked on-line for the lino cutting tools and for lino blocks. As expected the prices online are much better than my local arts and crafts shop... but I was lazy and decided I wanted them now so I purchased in my local shop.

I got an A4 lino block for €6.99 and a set of lino cutting tools for €4.99. I borrowed a roller and some printing paint from a friend. (They've never done lino printing before!)

So using the image on the tracing paper I set about getting a mirror of this image onto the lino block. I experimented with the tracing paper and the lino block but I found it difficult to see the pencil mark on the lino block. So I decided to cover the back of the tracing paper with white chalk, hoping it would show up better on the lino block. I taped the tracing paper to the lino block with masking tape.

I went around the outline of the crest with pencil. I only did the outline of the image as I figure there was no point in doing the detail at this point. (Looking back on it now I don't think there would have been a problem doing it all). Once I had completed the outline I removed the tracing paper.

At this point I realised that I had made a mistake with the chalk. It was more of a hindrance than a help. Once the chalk was wiped away I could see the outline of the crest so I went over it with a fine permanent marker.


My plan was to do the first print in yellow, then a second print in red and the final print in black. I warmed the lino block up slightly as I read that it is easier to work if it is warm. I started carving away the outside of the crest. This was a fairly slow process as I did not want to mess up the lino block. I did not have a lino cutting board (like the one used in the Lino Print - Tutorial ) so I had to be very careful cutting.

I continued cutting the lino board. There were a couple of parts especially around the edges that I need to cut a few times to get clear, clean edges. I think I may have some difficulty when I get into the detail of the crest due to the size of some of the cutting required.

And finally...