I started a new, quite large sketchbook for this project because I did not want to have my preparatory work all on loose sheets. The size of 28 x 35 cm was unusual for me but I wanted to work somewhat larger.

The starting idea was the view from the living room over to the open kitchen, where the two cat scratchtrees are. They are huge and bulky and a bit like sculptures. I often look at them and like the abstract qualities of the shapes they create in space. This inspired me to make a first drawing to just study the view in a bit more detail.

The second drawing was meant to develop the subject towards abstraction. I tried to simplify some shapes and studied tonal values.

The next step was a colour version of the view, which I developed from an even more simplified outline drawing using black felt pen (Sharpie). I wanted to use only few colours to represent the different tonal values.

I also wanted to create texture effects to take up the rough and soft surface qualities of the scratch trees. I thought this could be done best using scratch-foam because that material permitted fine, curly marks that would be difficult to create with the harder linocut. To try this out, I used a sheet of silver-backed scratch foil, and scratched the desired textures into it with a little wooden stick.

I made another drawing to include the lower parts of the scratchtrees and a bit of the floor as well, because I wanted to emphasize the horizontal orientation with these forms. I developed this further using a different colour scheme of yellows and reds.

The coloured drawing became the starting point for the final composition. I made a traced drawing and transferred this to a scratch-foam sheet to create a printable relief for the scratch tree only. I forgot that I had to reverse the image so the print is not in the correct orientation, but it served the purpose of trying out whether the mark-making would work. I really liked how my curly and edgy marks printed off the scratch-foam.

To try out how this would print over areas of colour, I went back to the sketchbook and painted geometrical coloured shapes in blue, red and yellow which took the abstraction from the actual view into the interior space a little further.

Then I made a black print of the scratch tree on top using the scratchfoam relief. I quite liked the effect how the colours printed through the black textures.

By the time I worked on this page in the sketchbook, I was unsure about the colour scheme and the degree of abstraction I wanted for the final print. I made two more tries with a different colour set, where I tried to get closer to the actual colours of the view, which were soft and muted because the room does not get much daylight on a gray winter’s day.

I finally decided that I preferred the brighter colours. For the print, I thought about making just brightly coloured, large geometrical shapes which would correspond to the orientation of elements in space. For this approach I experimented with collage and glued coloured tissue paper into the sketchbook. I made a secoond scratchfoam version of the cat tree in correct orientation and printed it over the collage.

I was satisfied with the overall effect and proceeded to develop my linoplate for this.

Interior view linoprint with three colours and black

I wanted to make this print as a reduction linocut that would have blue, yellow, red and black elements. I also wanted the coloured shapes extend beyond the original image frame of the drawing. I developed the linoplate to start with the blue colour, but inked the plate only selectively because my transparent inks would not sufficiently overprint the first blue layer.

To register the prints, I used a paper sheet onto which I made an outline drawing of the linoplate. After printing the blue, I cut away some areas and proceeded to yellow, which was also inked and printed only selectively, not over the entire area. For reference, I made an additional print of the first and second stage of the complete plates in blue and yellow.

Then I cut away those areas I wished to remain yellow and proceeded to the red ink. For the print, I inked selectively to only part of the plate. For reference, I made an additional red print of the plate in stage three.

I wanted to finalize the linoprint with black and there were many edges and the texture for the floor which created a lot of potential blur. The selective inking was meant to reduce the blurr that results from minimal misalignment. These are the prints with three colours and then with the black layer added.

To finally place the cat tree at the correct location and identically for each print in my series, I used the transparent drawing and transferred an outline onto the registration sheet. This was then transferred to a clean registration sheet and guided the final step of the printmaking. The second registration sheet shows the inked scratchfoam relief aligned in place for printing.

I also made a reference print off the final stage from the linoplate and produced a black-and-white version of the interior view.

The final print in three colours plus black, with the scratch foam cat tree printed on top. Its size is 50.5 x 35.5 cm, that’s between A3 and A2 portrait format.

Evaluation of process and outcome

At the beginning, I had been very reluctant to follow my original subject idea because I though that the project expected students to focus on interesting textural effects, whereas I saw the main interest of my subject in its abstract, geometrical shapes. I think I was inspired by the linocuts of Anne Sumpner Evans which i found in the recent research on contemporary experimental printmaking. I was fascinated by her sailboat motif and the abstraction within the prints, and I think this was why I caught on these qualities in my interior view.

It felt a bit like I had chosen the wrong subject for the task at hand, but there was this aspect of beginning to develop my own interests and topics, which I found equally important. So I decided to stay with the subject and try to treat surface textures as an important element of the composition, but not as the guiding feature. I might have produced “more exciting” textures if I had cut expressive marks into the lino, but this wouldn’t have worked for me. By contrast, using the soft scratch-foam did exactly match my intentions for the surfaces of the cat tree and I really like how the two different relief materials complement each other.

The ink that “accidentally” printed in the cut away areas adds another interesting texture element. I actually took much care to retain the shapes of the basic compositional elements in these areas because I anticipated how this would unavoidably create ink marks in the final print. This can be seen in the black and white reference print I included above.

The most difficult part of this print was the decision how to print the colours. I considered using a collage technique, but had no idea how extend this to an edition of prints. A chine collé technique similar to what I did in the sketchbook might have worked. The method of colouring a plate with a dabber (as explained in the course materials) didn’t seem to be appropriate to achieve the clear-cut edges and evenly coloured areas that I wanted. But the reduction linocut with selective inking offered a method to reproduce the coloured area over the series of prints.

I made 15 prints this time, of which the first three were spoiled when the paper was wrinkled under the press with the black linoplate. I had to considerably reduce the pressure to stop this, with the consequence that the black did not print as dark as I’d have wanted. But overall, the print came out as I had expected. I made an alignment error with the black rectangle to the right which was supposed to be slightly wider, but I don’t think it’s too disturbing in the overall image.

I think the main interest of the print is how I developed the abstraction and broke up the outline of the printed image with the coloured shapes that extend outside the black image frame. The shapes create a sense of space but it’s in a somewhat abstract way. I think the choices I made for the textures work very well in context, both the linocut pattern for the floor and the finer marks of the cat tree.

Another aspect of personal progress is how I developed the idea for this print from the original drawing of the interior view. I felt that developing ideas is one of my weaker areas so I’m glad that I stuck to it and explored my topic to make an interesting print from it.

Strangely enough it occurred to me very late that it would have been nice to include my cats in the composition. It’s their tree and the image would probably have been much livelier. But I was already done with the linoprinting, and adding cat shapes at this point wouldn’t have worked because they were not integrated in the colours and existing shapes of other elements.

To finalize, I think I’ve made quite an unusual print with the approach of combining lino with scratch-foam. I don’t think I’d necessarily adopt the technique for future work, but in this particular case it worked quite well. Other than that, I think I prefer lino over other relief materials because it’s relatively easy to work with and holds its shape well.

Series 4: Soft wood board, 20 x 30 cm, 12 fields

I used the back side of the wood board from Series 1, but with new tools: A set of wood carving knives (fields 1 to 8) and an electric carving tool (Rotary tool) which had more power and a different set of tooltips (fields 9 to 12)

Woodcarving knives:
1) Round knife #1 (smallest)
2) Round knife #2 and #3
3) Round knife #4
4) Round knife #5
5) Fine needle tip knife
6) 90° V-knife
7) Small and wide straigt chisels (5mm and 8mm)
8) small angled chisel
Rotary tools:
9) Blade saw
10) Triangular burr tip
11) Rounded burr tip
12) Small drill 2mm diameter

It was interesting to use wooden carving tools. I hadn’t tried my linocutting knives with the wood because I believed they were not sharp enough. The woodcutting tools came with a little stone so I could sharpen those that were a bit dull. Cutting with them went ok, although I tended to slide a bit due to the grain of the wood. The material is hard and quite some effort is required to cut away shapes.

By contrast, the electric Rotary tool cut into the wood like butter which eliminated the physical effort. The downside is the dust which normally should require wearing safety glasses and a dusk mask. I tried the mask in addition to the glasses I normally wear, but could hardly breathe, so this was not an option. If I were to use this often, I’d make sure to have a dust mask that is more comfortable.

Printing resulted in clear shapes as I had expected.

Series 5: Clayboard and various tools, 7.5 x 21 cm scrap piece, 5 fields

1) left: fine scratchboard nib; right: cutter nib
2) line tool
3) left: fiber brush; right: wire brush
4) left: a screw; right: scissors
5) 8 mm woodworking chisel

The clayboard was difficult to work on with the tools that were supposed to scratch into the surface. Actually the marks were so fine that they hardly printed at all. Only the more robust tools from my own toolbox created marks that were deep enough for a noticeable relief effect.

But I liked how the small plate looked on the large paper, the wide landscape format with broad space around it.

Series 6: Scratch-foam and various tools, 21 x 30 cm, 12 fields

1) Pencil
2) Pencil
3) Pencil
4) Printmaking spatula
5) Printmaking spatula
6) Nailbrush
7) Tablespoon
8) Soft rubber pastel blending tool
9) Handle of the pastel tool in 8)
10) Cap of linseed oil bottle
11) Metal paper clip
12) Wire brush

Using the scratch-foam was very pleasant because it was so easily embossed and all the textures printed nicely. Making marks was very similar to using foam sheets, but it printed even better because the surface was less absorbent. I also liked that half tones appeared in my print.

Evaluation of my experiments

From all the materials, I liked the scratch-foam best because it was so easy to work on and allowed to create interesting textures with almost any tool.

I felt that I wanted to proceed towards deveoping an image idea and then decide on a printing method that would work with my chosen subject.

Using an electrical Rotary tool (mini drilling machine) for carving into the wood with a variety of different tool tips

1) Fine round tip did not get into the wood, continued with large round tip which worked better and made vertical short and long lines (with the grain)
2) Same tool, horizontal lines (against the grain)
3) 2 cm ⌀ Metal brush for wider marks horizontally (against the grain)
4) Same tool, vertically (with the grain)
5) Small cylindrical sanding bit
6) Angled cylindrical sanding bit
7) 5mm ball sanding tip
8) 1mm drill
9) same tool
10) same tool
11) 2 cm saw wheel
11) 2 cm saw wheel

Prints on white rice paper (left) and brown Kraft paper (right)
    

Evaluation

I liked working into the wood surface and felt relatively safe using the Rotary tool. The grip mat under the wood kept it safely in place and I had to use only minimal force, which was quite different from working with lino cutters.

The Rotary tool seems to be best suited to expressive linear marks – cutting away larger areas would have been difficult. Working with the tool creates sawdust, which luckily was rather large and stuck to the plate and did not fly around too much, but probably it’s better to use a dust mask.

The wood surface soaked up a lot of ink, but permitted to print relatively fine detail despite the marks were not very deep. The Rotary tool might come in handy when linear elements or irregular, ragged marks are desired. For future trials, I’d expand to various hand cutting tools.

Series 2: Polystyrene board 29 x 43 cm, 12 fields

1) My fingernails
2) A ball pen
3) The back of a spoon
4) Utility knife
5) A screw
6) Backside of a pen for round, flat impressions
7) Impressions with a Q-Tip
8) Impressions with a nailbrush
9) Incisions with a sharp pottery tool
10) Digging into the surface with a spoon-shaped pottery tool
11) Impressions with a spade-shaped pottery tool (they look like footprints in the snow on the white polystyrene)
12) Scissor cuts

Prints on white rice paper and white drawing paper, approx. A3 size
    

Evaluation

I did not like at all working with the polystyrene, because it creates such a mess when it is cut. Little white crumbs that seem to stick to every surface and are hard to clean away. Printing the plate did not go well either. The surface absorbed huge amounts of ink and still did not print to a saturated black tone. I don’t think I’m going to continue working with Polystyrene unless the visual effect should be exactly what I’m looking for in a particular project.

Series 3: Thick chipboard, 14 x 30 cm, 8 fields

1) Incisions with a screw
2) Cutting ridges with an Exacto craft knife (very sharp)
3) digging into the surface with scissors
4) Exacto knife for cuts and flat screwdriver to dig out pieces
5) Rotary tool: Small round metal bit
6) Rotary tool: Large round metal bit
7) Rotary tool: Drill #1 (ca 1mm diameter)
8) Rotary tool: Sanding wheel 2 cm diameter

Prints on white rice paper and brown Kraft paper
    

Evaluation

The Rotary tool creates a lot of dust when working into the chipboard surface, and it doesn’t get into it very well, so I had to scrape off lots of material away with a craft knife to clean up the marks. Therefore I’d generally prefer to use handcutting tools for cardboard.

The cardboard surface is quite absorbent but still permits well saturated prints. The ragged style of the marks pleases me, too. What I particularly liked was the non-standard format and how it worked with the broad margins on the paper.

The material was thick enough to permit both linear marks and cutting away larger areas in a relief, which makes it quite versatile. But overall, I did not find it overly pleasant to work with, because it needed much physical force to cut into.

Series 4: Foam sheet (2mm), 21 x 30 cm, 6 fields

1) My fingernails and a ball pen
2) Double tip pottery tool and brush pottery tool
3) Shovel-shaped pottery tool
4) Needlepoint and spade pottery tools
5) Incisions, scratches and impressions made with a screw
6) Impressions made with a dull knife

Evaluation

Using the foam sheet as a surface was a surprisingly positive experience. For one, it was very easy to work into the surface, and secondly, it printed nicely from hand pressure and even went through the press without loosing detail.

The only problem was that my sheet was very thin (2mm) and therefore would not permit to cut away larger areas for a relief, unless mounted on a thicker support.

Prints on rice paper by hand (left) and Kraft paper with a press (right)
    

Reflections on the first experimental cutting session

I found it quite interesting to work with different materials and tools, other than lino and linocutters. It was good to see how the combination of surface, tools and printing paper worked or not. From this first session, I think I’m going to work again with wood and foam sheets, but will abandon Polystyrene. I’m not sure about cardboard – it’s not bad but I didn’t enjoy working on that surface as much as wood or foam, so will probably leave it as well.

While cutting, I realized that I want to be able to make both linear marks and cut away larger areas, so the chosen combination of tools and surfaces should allow this. I also prefer materials/techniques that do not require too much physical force and do not develop so much dust. So actually lino is already a material that fulfils these requirements to a great extent. Limits of lino appear with fine details – the surface tends to crumble away easily at sharp edges. This is probably done better with wood.

The big surprise was foam, it is so easy to work with and prints nicely. I wouldn’t have expected this and it adds some new possibilities to relief printing.

I did make some efforts at home though to just grab the sketchbook and draw or paint something. It’s not yet a habit as I haven’t found a method where to regularly integrate it in my day-to-day life, but at least I’ve filled a few pages to make a start.

I started with a view from the studio window towards the rooftop opposite the street – grayscale study where I aimed to bring out the white of the paper against pale gray tones of the sky.

Then I made a small sketchy portrait of Abraham Lincoln from a photograph. This takes up my interest in portaiture. I’ve recently watched a Craftsy tutorial where the instructor explained that the most typical features of a face are in the shadows, not in the particular shapes of eyes, nose or mouth. I found the approach intersting and this was a first attempt to try out whether resemblance would result if I focused on the shadows.

Getting back to the poinsettias, a view from further away in coloured pencil and a study of negative space from closer distance.

A ballpen portrait of Bill Bratton, Police Commissioner of the NYPD, drawn from a TV emission of his speech referring to two police officers that had been killed while on duty. I think I captured his sad mood.

Two Drawings from TV of Joshua Bell playing the violin at a Christmas House Concert. Drawing the figure with its motions was difficult already, but what made it worse were the constant camera cuts to different viewpoints were annoying because I had to wait until the camera came back to my chosen view.

Mark-making with india ink and my cat Gina sleeping on a cushion on the folding chair.

My cat Micky sleeping next to a cushion on the sofa, india ink. In the second sketch of Micky, I tried to extend the tonal range by including darker tones as well.

For this research point, I went to the Printmakers Council website for a start. To gain an overview, I briefly looked up the artists in the directory and selected those whose work I found visually appealing for a closer look. I then went through the works of these artists and made notes on their style and technique as well as what I might take as inspiration from them.

Most of the artists had further references to a personal website, and I looked up a few of these. I also looked up some techniques that were new to me, for example carborundum prints.

I found that I could sort my selected artists into two broad groups – one with a more graphical style based on woodcut or linocut and combined techniques, the other with a more painterly style using lithograph, etching, aquatint with other techniques. The boundaries between the groups are of course fluent. Particularly impressive for me were the approaches that broke up and changed the clear-cut graphical woodcut/linocut style and combined it with painterly, loose and impressionistic approaches. This broadens the possibilities of linocut printing enormously. I do like the pure linocut style a lot, but the additional possibilities are nevertheless very appealing and create stunning results.

There was the cityscape print by Steve Edwards which I found inspirational for my project idea of New York Citiscapes. The two linocuts by Anne Sumpner Evans impressed me because they seem to make visible the path from figurative to abstract. Ross Morley’s etched landscape reminds me of painterly monotype effects, but combined with fine linear elements that are difficult to achieve with monotype alone. Gill Tyson’s lithograph landscape is a good reminder how leaving space in an image allows it to breathe. And the Carborundum print by Jill Bray surprised me with the unusual shape of the printed image.

I will leave it at that for now, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of ideas and approaches in what I’ve seen. I think it was good to take up so much but now I would like to do some experimentation myself and see what ideas for a series of prints emerge and might be further developed.

Woodcut/linocut (graphic styles)

Gail Mallatratt: Woodcuts with interesting colour combinations and texture. Inspiration: Edgy shapes and colour overlays.

Glynis Owen: Linocut and caustic etch. Mosaic-like prints that use the white of the paper as compositional, structuring element

Glynis Porter: Woodcut and linocut. Graphical style. Interesting the light lines on dark ground which texture larger shapes. Inspirations: Combination of bold shapes and fine linework

Anna Alcock: Colourful relief prints. They live from the contrast between cold and warm colours – the blue/green spectrum versus the yellow/orange/red spectrum. Inspiration: Combine strong colours with black. Irregular cutting marks transfer nicely into the print.

Laura Boswell: Woodblock and linocut, mostly landscapes. Irregular print outlines. “Five rooks and grass” a series of 5 prints on a single landscape format paper. Inspiration: Breaking up the rectangle image frame, multiple prints on a single sheet to make a larger print.

Ruth Barrett-Danes: Drypoint and collagraph, monoprint/linocut. As such, combining painterly and graphical styles. Inspiration: combine linear elements with broader coloured areas in subtle gradations and tones

Steve Edwards: Etched and cut lino. Combines the clear-cut lino style with ragged, painterly elements through a process of etching the linoplate. Colour gradations with very painterly effects. Inspiration: Chemical processes applied to the lino surface to depart from the clear-cut style. Multi-colour inking of the linoplate.

Anne Sumpner Evans: Linocuts. Very impressed by the boats print and its development towards abstraction. Inspiration: Taking a figurative subject and develop it towards abstraction.

Etchings and other techniques: (painterly, fluent styles)

Ros Morley: Prints made as etchings with chine collé. Very impressionistic and painterly style, muted palette, probably a technique with only partially wiped off plates. The prints look a bit like lithographs. Inspiration: Try out monoprint (painterly) with linocut (graphical), partially inked linoplate and multiple colour overlays.

Frances Murray: Carborundum and relief monoprints. Abstract works with irregular shapes and lines, muted colours. Inspiration: Using the irregularities created by the process.

Robert Pugh: Very painterly style. Soft ground etching and aquatint. Prints look a bit like coloured illustrations, but with very soft and watercolour like qualities. Inspiration: Soft colourings might be achieved with dab inking on the linoplate

Helen Tranckle: Monoprint and drypoint, collagraph. Painterly style, the collagraph a bit more graphical. Inspiration: Depth of colour, irregularieties in inking create stunning textures in the print.

Susan Turner: Photopolymer intaglio/relief – blue and brown prints that look like sand under water, wavy textures. Inspiration: The wavy feel that comes from colours in varying intensities

Gill Tyson: Lithograph. Very empty landscapes – few marks create space and slight variations in tone and colour create atmosphere – minimalistic style. Inspiration: “Empty” space creates room to breathe in a print. Subtlety in colours has stunning effects.

Sian Wright: Polaroid lift and photo etching on paper and glass. Using chemical effects to transform photographic images. Inspiration: Loosening up a photographic source.

Jill Bray: Carborundum and collagraph. Very irregular, organic/withered appearance. Inspiration: The structure of the printed matter determines image boundaries. Texture effects from the printmaking surface.

Sarah Garvey: Red female figures under water – Monoprint and chine collé, drypoint. Warm/cold colour contrast, interesting textures for the water. Inspiration: The white of the paper turns into air bubbles under water.

Lisa Gribbon: Toray, etching & chine collé. Graphical style, but loose and painterly execution. Irregularities and uneven ink application. Inspiration: Going beyond a clear-cut style when working with graphical shapes.

References

Printmakers Council website http://www.printmakerscouncil.com