My starting point was one of the apple and cinnamon muffins I had made that day – I broke it in half and arranged it on a plate, together with a napkin and a fork, and a coffee mug. I made a first drawing on A4 white paper and a second my A4 brown paper sketchbook, but the sketches did not convince me. I found it hard to get the proportions right and didn’t manage to draw the muffin to make it recognizable. I concluded the composition was too complex and then could no longer resist the muffin.

Next try was a still life with coffee mug, sketchbooks, pencils and eraser. For this I chose a small sketchbook, slightly larger than A5, with the intention of forcing me to simplify and clean up by not having enough space to go into much detail.. The drawing worked quite well although I suspected the tiny elements in the pencils might be too fine for a linocut. I began working out the idea by making another drawing sized down to my A5 lino plate.

I found the composition interesting and hoped that I’d be able to find a solution for the pencil details. I continued with a chalk drawing on black paper and decided to have a go with lino as well. This time I made the transfer drawing on tracing paper by hand, not as previously using a photocopy, by taking an outline from the A5 pencil drawing. Then I reversed it and used carbon paper to get it onto the lino.

I took a proof with 2B graphite stick on rice paper. I found there was not enough differentiation in the lower part of the composition, where the elements were placed on the table. The pencils and the eraser were difficult to recognize. As I had read forward to Project 7, multi-colour linocut, I came up with the idea of adding another colour to this linoprint, to make the elements stand out better from the table.

I went ahead as described in Project 7 by taking a black print off the plate and transferring the image onto a second linoplate while the ink was still wet on the paper. To my surprise, the impression was not bad at all and the pencils came out nicely. Maybe this has to do with our viewing habits from left-to-right, so the different orientation of the print compared to the proof was easier to read. I took two more prints on bright white, smooth A4 drawing paper and another one on a slightly larger printmaking paper (11×14 inches/ 27.5 x 35 cm). That format works really well as it gives almost even margins around the A5 print.

After having cut the second plate, I chose a warm brown as my second colour. I decided to start with fresh prints and use brown as first colour because I thought it would look nicer to print black on top of the brown ink, rather than to print brown over black.

After the first brown print, I immediately added the second layer in black because I wanted to see whether the print worked. Before printing, I corrected the black plate slightly because there had been a pattern to the right top of the mug which I did not want to have there. This had to do with my composition which had a white upper background and no printed areas to stabilize the linoplate. So my cutting marks became visible. I had deliberately chosen a large flat gauge for this area, so the pattern was half-intended. But it made me aware that a linocut composition might need some elements in large white areas to prevent too many of the cutting marks  getting onto the paper.

After the first print, I went on with 12 more brown prints, choosing different paper types but staying with the A4 paper format. I started with Fabriano Accademia drawing paper, natural white, 200 gsm. The first print was a bit misaligned, and to compare I’m including another one where alignment worked better.

Registration became an issue, because the two A5 plates were not exactly the same size, which I only realized after printing the second colour. I tried to balance this out a bit by hand with more or less success.

Here I printed on coloured, indian paper handmade from cotton rags, 150 gsm. The colour was beige-brown, but the hue does not come out in the photo (photoshopping did not help). I also tried thin natural white mulberry paper (45 gsm). The paper is nice, but somewhat transparent and the ink bleeds through to the other side. From this experience, I prefer heavier paper for linocuts.

The method of placing the linoplate onto the paper, inked side down, did not work for me at all because my fingers got spotted with ink and the plate bent, and I wasn’t able to hold it well enough to get it nicely on the print. So finally I came up with the solution of using an A3 paper, extending the orientation lines of the A5 linoplate to the outer edges, and using these lines to register the hand-made papers with deckled edges over the linoplate.

Using this method, I printed three white handmade paper sheets with deckled edges, like the one included here. I think it worked out relatively well. Interestingly, I discovered that the handmade papers seem to have an orientation. They seem to look better in one direction, compared to the other. I think I made my print on the paper in the wrong direction – I should have turned it so that the lower edge with the large deckles was on the top. The effect has to do with how the light falls onto the textured surface of the paper. It is minimal but I’ll be aware of it in the future.

Another nice detail I discovered while working on this print was that the brown print embossed my cutting pattern into the paper. I was using a printing press, otherwise it might not have happened. When I printed the black layer on top, the black ink did not reach the embossed parts and so there are some brown spots within the black area of the sketchbook. It’s only a small effect and can hardly be seen in the enlarged photos, but is better visible in the actual prints. For future reference, I made single colour prints of both plates to complete the series.

Some concluding reflections

Overall, I’m quite happy that I worked on this series, because I now feel a bit more prepared to tackle a multicolour linoprint. I’ve had a taster of the difficulties when working with more than one colour.

I quite like the effects of my cutting marks in the “empty” areas. Maybe I shouldn’t have cut away the entire upper area. I could have treated the upper area a bit more like the lower area on the black plate, where I have left the original surface intact between my cut marks. It might have given a bit more control over how the upper area would actually print.

For the multicolour print to come, I’ll take much care with registration and will try to compensate for those slight size differences in my pre-cut lino plates.

When I searched more specifically for Rayograms by Man Ray, I found that there was a difference in quality and approach. They looked clearer, more like the composition of an artist than experimentation with effects. I noticed strong black and white contrasts, but also how transparency and tonal effects were integrated.

I did this research before starting with actual work on Part 2 and had some difficulty relating it to my own artwork. But now after the first linocut composition I see the similarity in the strong black and white contrasts of linocuts and rayograms. It might be interesting to try compositions that take up these ides. This might mean to focus on the contour of an object. The surface texture might be indicated in the contour as well.

– left: Rayograph, 1922
– right: Rayograph; Comb, Straight razor blade, Needle and other forms (1922)

Resources

Images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/265487?=&imgNo=0&tabName=related-objects

Atta Kwami, Ghana (born 1956)

I found this artist when searching for linocuts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art website. They struck me because I’m not aware of having seen abstract linocuts before. I was also impressed by the vivid colours.

They’re very different from what I usually associate with linocut works, like German Expressionism/die Brücke with their graphical style and figurative subjects. By contrast, Atta Kwami’s linocuts breathe african tradition with a novel approach to the technique of linocuts. The prints strongle relate to the artist’s other works, like abstract colourful paintings and textile  It’s a very graphical style. What I can take home from these prints is the encouragement to explore abstraction using linocut.

Images from Metropolitan Museum of art http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/383727?rpp=30&pg=1&ft=linocut&pos=1

James Lesesne Wells, North America (1902-1993)

Wells was an African American artist, born and educated in the United States. The prints I chose are from the late artist, made in the 1970 to 1990s. Maybe due to my own mature age, I’d count this as contemporary, but they remind me more of the graphic style of the 1960s than of today’s contemporary art. I think the technique employed is traditional, but I find the treatment of the subjects very interesting. The shapes are broken up and irregular, objects have surface texture, the choice of colour is unusual.

It’s again an artist whose works go beyond what I knew as characteristic for linocuts. I was thinking that colour linoprints generally combine multiple cut blocks, all cut out to print parts of the subject in a distinctive colour, so that different colours sit next to each other and transparency and overprinting occurs. But these prints are different. The colours are separated by black. The technique looks as if a first impression was made from a plate inked with several colours, followed by a second impression in black from a cut linoplate. The black provides the holding structure for the composition.

The one woodcut (still life with flowers) included for comparison is made in a different approach, using more colours and less black.

Bus stop, Ghana (1972), a colour linocut. A colour woodprint from 1975 also exists.
Watusi Family (1988), colour linocut
Still life with violin (1987), woodcut
Yellow vase (1980), colour linocut

Overview of works: http://www.artnet.com/artists/james-lesesne-wells/past-auction-results
Artist biography: http://www.artnet.com/artists/james-lesesne-wells/biography
Images from http://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Bus-Stop–Ghana/E1DFAD4FDADD6BD6

Tracing down the influence of the researched artists on my own practice

I have done this research after the single colour linocut of the interior view. I felt that I should do more research but also wanted to do practical work, so decided to take a break and read ahead in the course materials and do further research in parallel. Peeking into assignment 2 requirements, I realized there was room to do more single colour linocuts before proceeding to project 7 (multi-block printing), so I went on to do another linocut.

After that I took the opportunity to visit an exhibition at the Center for Contemporary printmaking in Norwalk, CT, and enjoyed an afternoon at the seaside as well, which led to my subject for the coloured linocut in project 7. There was such a momentum that I did not get back to this research topic until after having finished the multiblock print.

With hindsight, there is no apparent influence of these artist onto subsequent works, but I’m glad I proceeded in the way I did because the additional practice now lets me see these prints with different eyes. I continue to find them unusual and interesting in approach, but they’re not the direction I’m aiming for with my linocut work.

Finding a subject was difficult. Maybe this was because I had done a lot of watercolour painting and figure drawing recently and was somehow tied to looking for tonal values and colour composition. Considering a variety of subjects I mostly rejected them immediately because I found they would not work as linocuts. With hindsight I think this wasn’t true but was simply the effect of not knowing how to approach these subjects for relief printmaking.

I would have liked to work on landscape subjects again, but it was getting uncomfortably cold outside, and I did not want to work from photos this time. One evening I became aware of an interior view that I liked: The two adjacent windows with the cart in front of them. I liked the pattern of light and dark through the blinds, so decided to give it a try for a drawing.

Making the drawing took an endless amount of time and I was in constant doubt whether this image idea would work for a linoprint. My main concern was that the balance of light and dark was tilted towards light, so I would have to cut away almost all the lino to retain just a bit of black for the shades which would indicate what was there. The other concern was that there was actually no texture, because all the surfaces were plain and smooth, besides the little plants on the cart.

Despite much doubt, I decided to stay with the idea because I was curious how the resulting print would look like and whether I was right with my ideas. So I went throught he suggested steps of the procedure, making a chalk drawing on a black paper and then using tracing paper to reverse the image. I made a photocopy of the chalk drawing on tracing paper for this.

A turning point came when I proofed the linocut. The resulting image looked interesting and this gave me some more confidence about the entire idea.

It was only when working on the plate that I decided to make a gradation for the light falling on the wall, so that the one side of the blinds would print as black. I think this was a good decision because it resulted in a better balance of light and dark areas. With respect to texture, to me it looks as though the pattern of the blinds and the other elements provide enough interest, even if the actual object surfaces are not textured. The irregular shapes of the plant in the center helps to loosen up the very geometric style of the image.

I made a series of ten prints. The initial prints came out a bit weak (left print) but then I managed to ink them better so that the black area to the right came out without white sprinkles (right print). I did not clean up the linoplate in between but think this worked fine for the edition.

For the future, I think I’d rather look out for a subject with more sturdy elements and maybe a simpler composition. But for a first go with the suggested process, I’m quite happy with the results.

Steps of the process:

– Initial pencil drawing on white paper
– Drawing with chalk on black paper
– Fotocopy of the drawing onto tracing paper
– Carbon copy lines on the linoplate, made by drawing over the reversed image
– Cut linoplate
– Proof made with a 2B graphite stick
– Two example prints from an edition of 10, one with lighter spots (left), the other deep black (right)

Guided reflections

What do you have to take into account in order to create a strong single-colour design?

The strong contrasts of my print came actually as a surprise to me. It gives a lot of drama to a composition. I found the most difficult part to clarify the shapes of my objects having only black and white, no tones. While cutting, I decided to make use of fine white lines to help the viewer reading the image.

A composition based on tonal values with weak contrasts will come out quite differently if executed as a single colour linoprint. I guess I will need to learn from experience what works well in single-colour linoprints. I wouldn’t say this or that won’t work, rather see it as a matter of finding the right translation into this technique, and results may be surprising.

Can you find suitable new drawing techniques which translate into a linocut which have not been included already?

I might try drawing with ink rather than pencil to get a feeling for making clear marks and patterns rather than using tonal values to indicate shape and three-dimensionality.