I developed the multi-block linoprint after a visit to Norwalk, Conneticut, where I went to the Center for Contemporary Printmaking to see the exhibition of prints by Clare Romano and John Ross. The visit was super interesting.

After the exhibition, I went to the seaside to draw. I was fascinated by the view over the sea and the width of perspective, and tried to capture this in a sketch. Unfortunately it was so cold that I could barely complete that one single sketch before my fingers were dead frozen. So I changed plans and took photos instead, selecting views I’d have drawn if it wouldn’t have been that cold.

Back home, I looked through the photos to find one I could use as my source for working out a print. I had made many pictures and to help me select, I went back to my memories of the site and searched for the view that had impressed me most. It was this view of huge rocks in front of me, the moving grass, and the more distant outlook over the water. I then chose the photo that came closest, which was a portrait format.

Prep work

I started with a drawing of the scene to study the composition, shapes and textures, then made a quick watercolour sketch to try out the colours.

    

I spent a lot of time thinking how I might prepare the multicolour interpretation of the subject and which colours to choose. After some reflection, I broke my subject down into three colours plus the white of the paper:

– I wanted to use the white of the paper for the sky, the light areas of the water and on the sand, as well as on the rocks.
– For the grass, I wanted a broken yellow, like light ochre.
– I wanted a pale blue for the water and the shades of the rocks, and also for the shadows within the grass.
– As my darkest tone, I wanted a dark gray, not black, to mark the dark areas between the stones, the lower area of the grass, and the dark shapes in the mid- and background.

Then I repeated the drawing of the scene to fit on an A4 linoplate. To transfer the drawing on the plate, I made a photocopy of my sketch on tracing paper. The transfer to the first plate was made using carbon paper. I cut out my first plate (for the yellow colour) and made a black print from it which served to transfer the image onto the second plate, for the blue colour.

     

Then things became complicated because I needed some texture in areas I’d already cut away, and consequently had no marks on the lino to guide my cutting. So I reused the transparent drawing to add more detail using the carbon copy method. This became very complex. Some black areas were to be cut away, other marks indicated spots to retain. I tried to resolve ambiguities looking at the photo which was reverse-sided compared to the print on the linoplate. I was quite confused by all the marks on the plate, but continued cutting to make another black print and transfer the result onto the third linoplate, for the dark gray colour.

   

Again I was missing important marks to guide my cutting of details, and adding guidelines from the transparent drawing just added to the confusion. At this point I decided to mirror horizontally my original photo so that at least I had something to draw from onto the plate and help me to add the missing information. The cut of this third plate was tested with a graphite rubbing proof. I made corrections in the textures and then did the third black reference print.   

Series 1: Schmincke inks

Then I printed a first coloured series of the subject. I used cream white, medium weight sulphite paper with a moderately smooth surface. I mixed my colours:

– yellow: light ochre plus a bit of sepia and red to warm up the colour
– blue: white and prussian blue in roughly equal amounts to obtain a pale blue
– dark gray: black with a tad of white

Schmincke inks are opaque and the result was not quite what I had imagined. Therefore I made only a few prints, just from the amount of ink I had pre-mixed.

              

upper: Yellow, blue, gray single colour prints
lower: Two colour and three colour prints

Series 2: Speedball inks

I switched to Speedball inks for a second try, hoping I’d get closer to the colours I had imagined. Before printing, I reworked the plates a bit: I smoothed out areas that weren’t cut well and I also moved the lower edge of the yellow area upwards by cutting a little more away.

Speedball inks are actually transparent, but I had a selection of process colours and intended to mix them to get closer to what I wanted. I changed the original lemon yellow by adding some magenta and a tad of blue to obtain a warm, slightly broken yellow, which retained its transparency. But the process blue was a pure cyan and much too intense for my liking. I added a tad of black to break it, some extender to dilute it, and white to obtain a lighter tone. Unfortunately, the white killed the transparency and the original cyan came out as an opaque, turqoise blue. My adding of white to the black ink had a similar effect of making the ink opaque grey.

The prints were made on the same paper as the first series. I made some five prints but still wasn’t satisfied with how the colours came out.

         

upper: Yellow, blue, gray single colour prints
lower: Two colour and three colour prints

Series 3: Akua inks

I had been reluctant to use Akua inks for relief printing because I knew from earlier experience that they take very long to dry when applied over larger areas. That was why I started out with other waterbased inks. But the results didn’t convince me and so I thought I’d give it a try with these inks. I loved their colours in the monoprinting experiments and knew they worked best on a smooth surface, so choose a different paper for the next series.

I took bright white medium weight drawing paper for this. I mixed plain yellow with burnt sienna and obtained a warm, orange yellow.

I mixed ultramarine blue with transparent base to increase transparency and obtain a lighter tone, and added black to break the intensity of the hue. Unfortunately, I added too much black and ended up having to re-mix just part of it with more blue, and quite an amount of unused ink was left aside. I made a few test prints before I arrived at a broken blue that was roughly what I had envisioned.

       

For my darkest tone, I mixed black with transparent base. I added no white this time and was satisfied with the transparency of the inks. The two colour print (yellow and blue) worked quite nicely as well.

    

Adding the darkest tone, I realized that I was using too much ink and over the course of several prints, managed to apply less and less ink which also helped to come closer to my idea of a pale blue tone for the water and the stones. I found the prints were improving, but was not satisfied with the alignment of the third plate. I found that the dark areas did not bring out very well the shapes of the stones.

   

Series 4: Akua inks, trying to improve

Akua inks are extremely economical. In particular when using smooth paper which doesn’t absorb much, a little bit of ink goes very far. From series 3, I had so much unused ink left over which wouldn’t dry before printed on some paper, that I decided to have another go at trying to improve on the alignment of my plates.

This time I chose a slightly lighter, bright white inkjet paper with a very smooth surface. From earlier prints I knew this paper brought out the colours very nicely.

Looking closely at the last prints from series 3, I found that there was considerable misalignment in the lower areas of the print. I thought that the yellow plate was the culprit and my analysis led me to think the print would work out better if I just printed the yellow plate 5 mm upwards. So I set out to make a series of 12 prints, all with the dislocated yellow. Printing the blue on top, I realized that I had been mistaken, because now I had misalignment between yellow and blue.

         

I realized that the problem seemed to have been the black plate, which was good in its upper area, but misaligned in the lower area. Actually the black shades should have been roughly 5mm downwards to exactly match the patterns in the yellow and blue plates. To correct this, I decided to cut away the blue plate to lower the horizon line, and to cut away 5mm from the lower edge of the black plate.

But somehow, my analyses were confounded by my attempts at correcting misalignment by moving the plates, and I ended up totally disoriented where to register my plates. Cutting away the black plate had been erroneous and created a 5mm misalignment at the lower edge of the print. I corrected this by softening out the lower edge, but the plate was spoiled and registration of the remaining prints became really complicated.

       
1) corrected black plate, resulting in misalignment on the bottom edge
2) moving the black plate upwards, creating misalignment at the horizon with the water line
3) smoothed out lower edge of the black plate and correct alignment at the horizon line

Concluding reflections

When I look at the prints from these four series in direct comparison, I think that overall, the prints made with Akua inks are closest to the colours I wanted. But I’m not sure whether the final print with the best alignment and its colours closest to the pale tones I had in mind works best as an image. Actually I prefer the stronger colours of the third print, despite the alignment errors.

         

But getting the colours right was only part of the challenge. I do like the prints, but am aware that there is ample room for improvement. Firstly, I think my interpretation of the subject was too complex and I created too much texture which makes it difficult to read the resulting image. In particular, the grass area lacks three-dimensionality and looks more like a thin fence than a field of grass. Also, the rocks in the foreground lack clarity of definition and I think they have too much texture on them.

Secondly, my working process was flawed in that the technique of transferring the image idea onto the three linoplates was full of ambiguities which I tried to resolve on the fly. Difficulties arose from from the different types of marks on the plates (print marks, carbon copy marks and additional pencil marks) and from working with the original photo source towards the mirrored linoplates.

It was also very annoying that the linoplates were not cut exactly to the same format, but differed from each other by +/- 5mm in any direction. This added to the registration difficulties I encountered.

I did try to correct for misalignments by reworking the plates during printing, but if I were to do it again, I’d rather develop a process that’s more reliable right from the start. While I think it is ok to rework a plate to correct for colour and texture effects, misalignment of compositional elements should not occur at that point.

I think my drawing was not the best starting point. It probably had too many ambiguities and unresolved shapes which then carried over into subsequent steps. I remember that I had tried to find a technique how I could develop a preparatory coloured drawing or painting to guide subsequent steps, but my ideas did not work out. With hindsight, I think that it would have helped to have a drawing of just those 3 colours plus white and clearly defined shapes.

But then again, part of the interest and impact in the print results from the complex textures and chance effects how the colours printed over each other. When improving the process, I think it will be important to leave an element of chance and improvisation to not kill the outcome by perfection. It might be a matter of balancing though. I think I’m going to try out a more defined approach in the future an see how I get along with it.

Lessons learnt from this project

• The drawing to use as a master for the linocut should be well defined with respect to the colours that are going to be printed. I’d like to have a technique using multiple colours to create a source image that I can rework until it represents a guide for the subsequent cutting.
• It helps to have a mirrored image of the source image to work out the linoplates, eg texture within shapes
• If inks are supposed to be transparent, no white should be added
• Avoid on the fly alignment corrections like printing outside of registration marks or later cutting on the linoplate (texture corrections are ok though). Instead, try to work from a well defined source image and resolve alignment issues before printing
• Try to resolve registration issues arising from linoplate size deviations before even starting to transfer the image on the plates.