Block printing a few cards
Hannah did this drawing below of her bear, Wyatt, and since the shape was strong enough for a single-color print I thought we could make all the invitations to her birthday party. Oddly enough, as much as I love them, I've never done a linocut before now. There's an in-progress woodcut here, wood being a material which seems to need much time and care. Linoblocks are infinitely more forgiving, and all told the cards should take no more than a day at most (stretched out over a week).
Flip the drawing horizontally in Photoshop and scale to fit your cardstock.
Position the image so that one corner of the block aligns with a corner of your cards, and transfer the image to your block: I used a 2b pencil rubbed over the back of the drawing and traced it onto the block with a sharpened #2 pencil. A fine-point Sharpie works well to keep the image visible.
I use a combination of detail woodcarving and regular linocutting tools. A small v-gouge will outline the image nicely, and remember to chisel away from the image. Work with a light touch: a series of shallow gouges are more controlled than deeper ones which tend to get away from you. The regular, bigger linocutting tools are great for removing large areas quickly, but proceed cautiously if you haven't done this before -- you need to get a feel for how the gouges cut and build your own carving rhythms.
Test your image: Place some generous dots of ink on a small sheet of glass or acrylic, and roll the brayer back and forth until ink is evenly distributed over the entire surface of the brayer. Ink the block to see what you've missed, and yes, whoops, no eyes! Looks like I also need to do some clean-up on the image itself and a few areas outside of the bear need to have some height reduction. This would be a good point for making test prints and seeing how they hold up in comparison to the original drawing. Compromises are ok :)
The bear can see again and we're ready to print: Carefully lay the paper face down onto the block, aligning those two corners, and rub with the baren, applying even pressure. Peel away the card and let dry overnight.
Hannah's bear was printed on blank kraftpaper cards -- a brown, fibrous paper which not only looks great but easily hides mistakes. But with wonderful, spontaneous drawings like these, there's very little that can go wrong.
Equipment:
Speedball makes decent equipment which can last for a while. Start with a basic set and once you have a feel for how the tools work, you'll be able to tell what you need next, and progress to buying your gouges individually. Beginners should start with waterbased inks, and as your comfort level increases you'll find there are a variety of excellent inks available for block printing. Black, for instance, can come in a dozen different shades.
1. Speedball block printing starter set
The basic unit with which to get started: black ink, cutters, a linoleum block, a brayer
2. Speedball baren (You absolutely need this for applying even pressure)
3. Additional Speedball gouges
A good basic set consists of two sizes of V and U gouges. U gouges are the workhorse gouges for large-area removal, and
the smaller cutters easily handle some detail. V gouges are detail tools.
February 28, 2008
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Collage: Tom gave Mila Boutan's Picasso Art Activity Pack to Hannah a few months ago, and she's never used it till this morning.
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Some wooden letters I'd had lasercut
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