On 31 July this year, I resolved (again) to do something creative every day. There was a particular reason for this which I may explain in a subsequent post. We’ll see how the resolution goes. So far I’ve managed to keep to it. We’re only two weeks in, however.

Today, it was lino cut printing. A few years ago, I had a go at this but, for various reasons I didn’t continue the experiment. But I had a little of the lino material left over and I had bought a simple tool in Evans, off Capel Street, with which to carve it.

The process is quite quick once you get used to it. Here’s what I made in 2016:

 

 

Last night then, I tried to take a short cut and it didn’t work. Instead of leaving the objects I wanted to print in relief, I left everything else in relief and tried to print with white ink on black card. The result was a mess, unsurprisingly. In any case, I didn’t have any proper ink so I used acrylic paint, which was too thin.

 

 

So this evening after work, I took a deep breath and did it properly. With a bit of application and concentration, the whole thing, from drawing the objects on the lino to washing the (proper black) ink off the pallet, took just over an hour. Encouraging. And also pleasing. The print is crude(ish) but I quite like the effect.

Here’s a drawing of the idea:

The carved lino:

And a print (I made about six or seven):

 

 

I’m pretty pleased to be honest.