As a lead up to creating some lino prints we spent one week designing potato prints. Although it may have seemed like a step back into kindergarten it was a good exercise to get everyone thinking about positive and negative designs and carving the mirror image of what they wanted to see in their final print. The lino blocks are of course a little pricier than potatoes so the preparation was worthwhile.

B11 created some car logos, cars being his current passion. I carved a leaf and some abstract patterns. There was a paisley design, a few names and letters, an eye and a quite impressive albeit mirrored image world map.

The following week we began by designing our lino cuts. Everyone had to decide whether they wanted to create a negative or positive design. One way you carve your design out of the lino block leaving lino around the design. The other method is to carve away all that is not your design so that it remains at the end to be inked. Once the designs had been transferred or redrawn on the lino blocks everyone started carving. The carving tools are very sharp. A few of the students made me nervous. Band aids were needed!

The first prints were done using Stampin’Up Craft ink and the coverage wasn’t too bad; the smoother the paper the better the print. I am going to get some ink specifically designed for block printing and see what the difference is.

We have started a new year of art and I have a class of four regulars with a couple more students who will join in occasionally. Our first unit for the year is printmaking and we kicked off with two weeks of marbling. For Christmas one year B11 bought me a marbling kit which, until now, has sat on the shelf unused. We had a great time with it and are all keen to have another go at a later date. I will need to find a new source of chemicals having used up the ones in the kit and I would like to try better quality paper and/or inks as the prints are a little washed out.

Marbling involves a bath of “size” onto which you drop coloured inks. The inks spread but do not blend so it is possible to manipulated them into patterns with combs and skewers.

Once the pattern is created,  paper which has been soaked in an alum solution is lowered onto the size to pick up the marbled pattern.

During the first week we familiarized ourselves with the way the inks reacted to the size and to each other, creating some basic and random patterns. Above is a print B11 made.  The second week we were more deliberate in creating our patterns following some recipes included in the kit. Below are two prints; the pink one A15 made and the other is mine.