It’s A Lino, It’s A Drypoint, It’s…

…It’s a reduction linocut AND drypoint montage!

That’s right, folks. Today I bring you (cue the Monty Python voice) something completely different hot off Little Mr. 906–a.k.a. my newest studio addition, the etching press, which I have mentioned in prior posts.

“Begonia Temptation” 2/ 7 prints. Reduction linocut and drypoint. ©Katie Kath 2023. Do not use without permission.

This printing technique is what you might call a “twofer:” it marries the linoleum block print with a drypoint etch all in one single print. Needless to say, this technique (which I discovered and read up on Belinda Del Pesco’s amazing blog of experimental printmaking) called for a strong dose of planning, patience, time, paint-mixing, and many runs through the press. (Thank goodness for that press!)

The first thing I needed to do was come up with a sketch and some idea for how many colors I dared–er–wanted to print. I transferred the sketch onto the linoleum and blocked in my chosen pigments with colored-pencil. I ended up using a total of five colors.

Everyone knows that hurdles are to be expected when trying out something new and somewhat complex. My first hurdle was dealing with the fact that you must always start with the lightest colors first when carving linoleum for a reduction print.

As you can see from the pictures above, I ended up needing to create a mask (I used plastic tracing paper) for the yellows, since there is a strong presence of blue in my image and I wanted to make sure the yellows stayed yellow while at the same time allowing some areas (in this case, the chair cushion) to turn into greens when I made the blue pass.

In the same vein, I didn’t want my blues ALL turning green, which would happen if I inked the entire linoleum plate in yellow for a first pass. Masking is great for solving issues like this.

After masking, I added the pink details with a sponge pouncer.

Here is the final color run for the linoleum print portion of this project: a dark bluish black. You can see that all of the prior colors have been completely carved away.

The finished color prints! After each color was run through, I had to wipe the plate clean and proceed to carve out the areas for the next color. I let each color dry completely overnight to prevent any smudging or ink transferring issues.

I decided to make 10 prints total. Even though I cut 15 sheets initially, I was so tired from caring for my toddler in the daytime, I decided if fate had it that I managed to totally screw up all 10 prints in the end, I just needed to regroup and try something else entirely.

It turned out that fate was on my side! After five colors and five runs through the press, I ended up with 8 good prints, which is a pretty lucky start.

Once the linocuts were complete, the final step in the process was to ink up and run a plate of plexiglass I had carved, dry-point style, back over all of the good lino prints.

Yes, what you are thinking is correct: this is yet another chance to screw up prints! (This is why I made so many prints to gamble with initially.)

This leads me to my final hurdle: lining everything up correctly.

Despite my very best efforts, my first run was not aligned AT ALL. After beating my head against the wall one evening trying to find a solution, I decided to sleep on it. The next day, it finally occurred to me–duh–that plexiglass is clear: I could simply ink the plate, flip it over, carefully match it up to each print without fear of unintended ink transfer (remember how much pressure it takes to actually make a dry-point print?) lightly tape it down with painter’s tape, flip it back over, and run it through.

Bada-bing-bada-boom: worked like a charm.

So: there you have it folks: my first lino-drypoint mashup. Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Do I want to do more of these in the future?

My impatient and toddler-weary side of me would probably prefer something that gave me a little more instant gratification. This entire process has taken me weeks to complete since my free evenings are limited in quantity and time. However, that’s not what creating is about, is it? You can’t get better at something with a one-and-done. So the answer is yes, I will be making more, at some point.

Until next time, happy creating!

Advertisement

Beat the heat. Watch the trash truck.

An outdoorsy toddler trapped indoors is not a fun thing.

It’s a bit like having a small chimpanzee roaming your house for several hours: I turn my back, and before I can say “Davey Crockett’s coon hat,” my son will have spilled his milk, climbed up onto the step stool next to the sink, grabbed a dirty sponge and shoved it in his mouth, and found some kind of semi-dangerous item somewhere and turned it into a toy/weapon/cat-dog torturing device. All of this in a space of a minute or two. Before having my M. I had naively thought that any decent parent worth their salt could easily tame the wild 1-year-old, bending him to their will with a stern look and an engaging book that their child could quietly and obediently read in a corner (HA!) Little did I know of the destruction an even slightly-bored toddler could leave in his wake, and all in the name of exploration and curiosity.

Luckily, it was trash day.

M. loves to watch the trash truck make its rounds. When I hear it come around the corner of our street, I say “It’s the trash truck! Let’s go see the trash truck!” and he will tear down the hallway to the front window and stare, studying that trash truck, open-mouthed, like it’s the most amazing thing in the world. Then, he will wave to it with his chubby little hands as it goes back up the street, begging it to come back (and subsequently throwing a tantrum when it finally disappears around the corner).

Oh, the highlights of a toddler’s life!