The title of this page really does make sense. I’m going to show you how I made my very first reduction linocut – a technique which Picasso called suicide printing. Here’s why: every time you print a new colour on top of the last colour, you carve more of your lino block away. So once you start on a suicide print, you can never go back. If you mess up, you’ve had it. Click through the images to see how it all worked out for me.
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- My initial sketch. A blue-footed booby which I’ve been promising to the children for ages.
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- I cut some cardboard to the shape of my lino, and add corners for putting my paper. This will keep everything registered (in the same place each time).
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- The drawing transferred, in reverse, onto the lino.
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- I carve out all the areas that I want to keep white.
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- The cardboard is glued to my etching press bed.
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- The lino gets its first colour rolled on and sits happily in its special hole.
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- It’s all rolled through the press and the first print is looking good!
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- I’m making an edition of 12 so I start with 25 to allow for plenty of mistakes.
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- The areas I want to keep pale blue now get carved out. No going back now.
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- Now I roll on the darker blue.
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- …back into the press.
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- Amazing! I got 25 well-registered prints at 2nd colour stage!
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- Now to carve out all areas that will remain deep blue.
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- Ready for its third and final round in the press.
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- Inked up with black.
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- Oops. Now I have problems with registration: the black is out of alignment.
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- I also have some warping and creasing of the paper. I think this is also what caused the registration to slip. Next time I will put some card above the paper to avoid both problems, and decrease the pressure in the press.
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- But thank goodness, I just manage to scrape 12 good prints!
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- Here it is: the Blue Footed Booby in all its glory!
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- That took till midnight. Happy Catriona.
NB since making this How To, I have found a fool-proof method of registration which means that the colours will line up perfectly every time. See how I did it here.
