Carving and Printing

I’ve always been a bit in love with hand-printed designs.  Each piece has unique qualities and differences because of the hand-printing process.  Some call it flaws but I like to think they are touched by human hands and with it comes that transfer of human-like qualities.  The unique differences are attractive to me and special in so many ways because people certainly are not perfect, but special nevertheless.  Our products can be that way too.  Although I do appreciate precision in many things, there’s always a feeling of non-human when it comes to super pristine designed products.  I’ve also been going through Lena Corwin’s book Printing by Hand that has spurred me on to take action.  I bought a little linoleum printing kit and carved out a design, little owlie sitting on a tree branch with lines under to act as a page of stationery for writing.

The carving process was very mesmerizing and addictive.  Even though I don’t have super control over the carving tools just yet and sometimes judgments were off, I found the process enjoyable overall.  It was just so satisfying to see a blank block of linoleum being shaped into my own design.  Wow – I did that!  I almost can’t believe it myself, but really it does not require a detailed design of any sort.  I imagine it would have probably been better to start with a simpler design!

I know you are supposed to do some test prints and probably fix up the design a bit, but of course I got impatient after a hot day of carving madly.  I decided to use my rubber ink pad to do a test print, but there wasn’t nearly enough ink to make a really nice print.  So finally I spread out a bunch of scrap paper and prepared to make a real lino print, spreading the ink with a brayer and using different papers to test out prints.  I realized that it’s a lot harder than it looks in tutorials.  I have such bad control over how much ink is applied.  My prints were really light, really dark and smudged in various spots.  I am thinking that missing a piece of glass to spread ink evenly onto might be one culprit.  I also realized I shouldn’t have bought cheap linoleum sheets that are pretty thin because it probably would have helped to have a thicker block when printing without a press.  Well, it’s all in the process of experimentation and learning!

I did end up with a bunch of custom printed stationery in the end, which I will use and treasure for their uniqueness nevertheless!  I’m actually thinking I might still do some refining with the carving tools and then test on more papers and with different inks.  It’s definitely fun to have something custom that you can print on anything, not just paper.  Ooo, the possibilities!

Posted on August 3, 2009 at 12:36 am | carving + printing

4 Responses to “Carving and Printing”

1. Lori says:

   August 4, 2009 at 4:38 pm

   Wow- awesome!

   Reply
   • linda says:

     August 6, 2009 at 11:17 am

     Still have lots to learn, but the process is so fun!
2. Jenni Horne says:

   August 7, 2009 at 2:02 pm

   You did wonderful for a first timer! I was actually a printing major in college. I think that’s why I like my texture paintings so much. The carving part brings me back to those days of wide eyed learning. Anyhoo….keep up the good work on those birdie paintings! Happy creating. Jenni

   Reply
   • linda says:

     August 7, 2009 at 6:55 pm

     Thanks for the encouragement! I like how this type of printing has such a raised surface…it’s all about the texture.