Lino printing workshop

Yesterday I attended a lino printing workshop.  Karen Carter an experienced artist, illustrator, printmaker and tutor treated us to a well-organised and informative day's experience.  Some of those present had never used lino before and were a little daunted to begin with, but soon got to grips with the process, resulting in some really nice work.

In addition to single colour printing, Karen explained how the process could be expanded with the use of coloured backgrounds, ink blending, spot colouring, jigsaw printing, collaging, etc., showing us examples of these techniques in her own work.  There wasn't time for us to fully explore these additional techniques, but we are hoping to arrange a follow-up session in the not too distant future. A really inspiring day, thoroughly enjoyed by us all.

I knew we would be working on a piece of lino 6" x 8" and had pre-prepared a reasonably complicated floral design to utilise that size.  However, on the day, I realised that might be a little ambitious for the time available, so opted for a simpler design at half that size.My prints were definitely not all perfect, but I wanted to try out various different papers (book pages, mulberry paper, painted tissue paper, etc.) as well as the spot inking.  I had not used proper oil based printing inks before and I was interested to try these out (these were Caligo Safe Wash Inks).  I have used water-based printing ink in the past, but this did not suit my practice as I often like to add watercolour or fluid acrylic to enhance my finished prints and this ink would be reactivated once liquid paint was applied.  My solution to this problem has been to use gesso, black or white, adding liquid acrylic to the white if needed - this doesn't allow for an extended printing time, but so far my projects have been quite small.

Easy-Cut lino - cuts almost like butter! (size approx. 3.5" x 5")

Painted and gesso printed tissue (left), packing tissue (middle),
gesso printed tissue background with spot-colour over-printed

Spot-colour printed on mulberry paper (left); black print on book page (right)

Some of the prints produced by the rest of the group:

The following are some examples of Karen's work:

Some very small prints making up an interesting accordion booklet.
(Copyright Karen Carter)

A puzzle block - the initial block has been cut into
three separate pieces, inked with different colours,
reassembled and printed as one image
(Copyright Karen Carter)

The same block - one printed white on black (left),
the other printed black on white (right)
(Copyright Karen Carter)

(Copyright Karen Carter)

An effective use of one small block printed onto various different papers
(Copyright Karen Carter)