Vernon Street - Lino printing

To keep in with the theme I had with the previous testing, on the screen-printing, I decided to do a lino print of the mayfair property, just as something to work with. 

I live traced this based on the preset I had made from doing the screen-print, which I just discovered how to do, it's so handy now instead of having to fiddle about with it for ages so that's a new thing I've learned that's helped me from doing this.

I printed it onto tracing paper as I had heard that that's one way to transfer the image onto the lino.

Which turned out to be true, as a makeshift way you apply soft pastel to the printed side.

...Then you draw over the lines so you have create a mono print onto the lino of the chalk.

Then you draw over the pastel lines on the lino with a pen, it's makeshift but it does the job.

In Vernon they 4 different tools to use in the workshop, I thought i'd organise them to see what they all do and what types of cuts they make. I discovered 11 & 9 to be the best, 11 for big deep and long cuts while using 9 for the detailing. 

Everyone eventually finished their lino cuts, Me, Grace and Alex. (In order to the picture below)

Neil said to tape up the sides if you didn't want to print them bits, but the only downside of this is that you have to remove the tape before you print then reapply for every print you want to make which makes it a bit of a pain.

We needed Neil to show us how to apply the ink to the lino again properly, but once we'd seen it we understood how to do it immediately as it was rather simply. I was more concerned by the fact that we were applying it on-top of the desks which is different. I give up on the applying of the tape around the edges as the it simply to much of a hassle.

As well as how to apply the ink, Neil showed us how to print in the old Victorian press, this again we picked up immediately, It was simply just applying a rag and tissue paper on top. Im glad I choose to do this because last year I never used it, so it's good to have some experience around it now, including knowing how much packing to place on top of the print.

 I don't think mine or Alex's lino prints worked as well as Graces. Firstly because we were attempting to create something that was accurate, Grace's drawing of the St.Bernards worked really well because the linos added effects to the print to give it more pleasing aesthetics, such as the lines from when it's printed.

It's much better to print lino if you intend for it to be not be perfect to begin with, such as drawing, compared to trying to create precise typography work it has more negative effects to it then positive. I don't know when or how i'd use lino, simply because the whole operation is totally clumsy. The placing of the print onto paper to the act of carving one out. It'd be more useful for illustration purposes because of this.

 I've learned how to do it rather well at least and I'm glad about that, I understand that It's better to just draw something with it and not try and create boundaries and just go with the flow of the lino cut. It works a lot better in your favour if you do.