SKETCHING

I initially sketched a few pelicans in different poses, then built up the sketch by adding a suitable environment in the form of a river scene with rushes and flora, along with some mountains in the background. The resulting sketch is totally made up, so may not be an entirely correct environment.

The sketch was a little bigger than A4 and done on 50gsm mark-up paper.

TRANSFERING THE IMAGE

Once I was happy, the next task was to get the sketch transferred to lino.

To achieve this, I used a 9B graphite stick to build up a thin layer of graphite on the back of the sketch and affixed this to the top of the lino securely. I then traced over the sketch so that it left a faint image on the lino.

The final stage of transfer involved removing the paper and going over my graphite lines on the lino with a fine indelible ink pen.

For this print I used Japanese Lino, which has synthetic green layer on black body. It’s a bit harder to cut than the natural grey lino that I normally use, but it’s possible to carve a more detailed image with it.

CARVING

Now comes the equally interesting and scary bit of actually carving the lino.

You have to have your wits about you all the time, as it's easy to get carried away and carve away parts that you want to keep! It also takes a lot of planning too, especially when two dark areas or two light areas meet or overlap.

There are several ways around this, one is to leave a thin line between the two areas. Another method that can give surprisingly good and with stylish results, is to change from negative to positive where the two areas meet.

Another problem with a mono colour print is that, with one colour, there are no mid tones. There are a number of ways around this too, the most common being hatching or cross hatching, which, at a distance tricks the eye into perceiving a mid tone. This can be fine for shapes that don't have much form to them, but to give the illusion of form, cutting adjacent lines in the direction or plane of the form, can give the illusion of shape. Also, the spacing and width of cut lines can differentiate between different tones - narrow lines wider apart give a darker tone, whereas thick lines closer together give the impression of a lighter tone.

The final task is to print the work, which for me is the most exciting and rewarding part of making a linocut print. With printing in one colour, there is no worry about registration. It's just a case of inking the lino with a brayer (or roller) and placing a sheet of paper over the top, then burnishing or rubbing over the paper with a large metal spoon, unless you are fortunate enough to own a press!