I still remember the first time I tried lino printing.
It was in a high school art class, and we were each given a square of lino (linoleum) to work with. My artwork was a self-portrait of my screaming face, hair streaming out from my head in every direction.
I remember how good it felt to carve the lino away, stripping off ribbons that curled away from the blade and fell onto the desk. How tactile, the experience of rolling ink onto the brayer and running it across the block, tuning in to the whispery sound that indicated whether the ink level was right.
I wish I still owned that print!
I’ve been experimenting with block printing again. Carving bold lines takes me back to my high school art room (in the best way possible!), and the world falls away as I focus on stripping and digging.
Recently, I decided to try my first multi-colour print. This is a much bigger challenge than using just one ink colour, as each colour, printed using a different block, needs to be lined up perfectly with the last. Accurate colour placement requires careful registration, using a system to ensure that each colour lines up in exactly the right way.
As with most art experiments, I dove in with very little preparation. I knew I would learn more just by doing it.
The project? An illustration for my blog piece about doing a creative PhD. I wanted to do a stylised illustration of a person in the graduation robes and unique bonnet of a doctoral graduate.
My inspiration? Photos of myself in this garb:
I started out with a sketch on my iPad, in the Procreate app. I had just bought yellow and teal printing inks, to go along with my existing black ink, so I used those colours to work up the illustration, and separate into the various plates:
Once satisfied with the image, I printed out each coloured plate as a black image, for transferring onto the block.
For this print, I used a large Renoir Ezy Carve printing block, cut down into three smaller blocks.
Mistakes I made
As the title of this post suggests, I made five main mistakes with this project. These mistakes are frustrating, but in the spirit of learning and experimentation, I suppose I’ve learned not to make them again!
- Mistake 1: I printed the image “the right way around”
- Mistake 2: Carbon paper didn’t work to transfer the image
- Mistake 3: My blocks were different sizes and imperfectly lined-up, which made registration challenging
- Mistake 4: I had trouble with ink volume
- Mistake 5: I used an Ezy Carve block
Mistake 1: I printed the artwork “the right way around” for transferring
Easy to do. When transferring the image onto a block, double- and triple- check which way around it is. I forgot to flip it while printing from my iPad, so I needed to use my lightbox to trace it through to the other side of the paper. That way, I could carve the block in mirror image, and the resulting print would be the right way around.
Mistake 2: Carbon paper didn’t work to transfer the image
I have a huge stack of black carbon paper that I bought just for this purpose. A test on regular paper worked, so I went for it and traced the entire artwork onto the block:
Until I lifted the drawing and carbon paper off, and… nothing. Not even one single mark had come off onto the block. 😭 I guess carbon paper just doesn’t work on these rubbery blocks?
I do also have graphite transfer paper, but that’s a white colour. Useful for green, blue, or grey linoleum. But not for white rubber!
So instead, I transferred the drawings using the “good old” method of scribbling a lot of graphite (pencil) over the lines, turning the paper upside down, then tracing over the lines again to transfer. I then went over the lines with ballpoint pen:
The good news? The Ezy Carve blocks are, well, ezy to carve!
Mistake 3: My blocks were different sizes and imperfectly lined-up, which made registration challenging
In the ‘I could have seen this coming’ files, having blocks of different sizes makes registration (lining up the colours) really hard. Lacking a better jig (template for lining everything up the same way each time), I positioned each block in the correct (I thought) orientation, and traced around it on paper:
That way, I reasoned, I would place the inked block inside its outline, line the paper up with the bottom paper, and the print would hit in the same way each time.
Well, that didn’t really work. The Ezy Carve is 12mm thick, allowing carving on both sides. A good idea in theory, but in practice, that meant more height for my printing paper and less accuracy in lining it up with the jig paper.
That meant a lot of guesswork, fudged prints, and misalignments:
Short interlude to appreciate the ink on my hands. AI doesn’t get messy!
After this first round of printing, I discovered a different registration method that I thought would work well for my case. Since the yellow and black blocks were quite small, I could use them as stamps rather than printing blocks. That means placing the block on top of the paper, rather than the paper on top of the block. Cutting the blocks down to the artwork on two or three sides allows more accurate placement on the background teal print:
This did work slightly better, but it wasn’t perfect:
Mistake 4: I had trouble with ink volume
The teal and yellow inks are by Derivan, and the black ink is by Speedball. These are very different textures and qualities of inks, and I found it difficult to control the volume of each of them. Sometimes I didn’t use enough, and ended up with a lot of white areas in the print. Sometimes I used too much, and ended up with blotchy areas.
And since they were three-colour prints, sometimes one colour would turn out perfectly, then I would ruin it by using the wrong amount of ink on the next colour!
Mistake 5: I used an Ezy Carve block
Sure, making the Ezy Carve block thick enough to carve on both sides sounds like a good idea. But, as I mentioned above, the extra thickness really was a pain for registration.
Also, the rubbery texture of the block meant that it was soft, and its slight squishiness meant that if enough pressure was applied, the ink would squish beyond the edges of the carving.
Overall, though, I’m still pretty pleased with the (best) final print. It reflects the initial concept, with the struggles and messiness layered on. And that is its own kind of perfect:
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