The above was taken this morning after seeking/receiving advice from Jim Westergard about speckled and patchy prints. This time I placed blotting paper between the felt blanket I was using to cushion the paper between the plate and the first wooden slab on my jack press. So, there was the plate placed face up on the platten. The Printmaking paper on top of that, then several pieces of blotting paper and then the blanket followed by the wooden slab and pressure supplied in the form of a car jack.

I feel there is slight improvement. There is a more consistent spread of the ink. However, I think I could make a better print if I were to gently sand the surface of the lino. I vaguely remember being advised this before, however a simultaneous email sent to the Printmaker and Illustrator Paul Catherall brought this back to mind.

In an ideal world I would have taken this crucial step prior to cutting my design, but lessons learned the hard way are more easily recalled I find. I shall need to take care to remove dust and debris from the cuts and the plate surface before attempting another proof. Also, the ink is very cold and I neglected to warm it through before taking this morning’s proof. I am attending to this now, and shall edit this post accordingly once this and further steps have been taken.

I shall likely test out the late light sanding step on an old attempt at lino cutting I carried out before starting the course.

This produced the following proof following the same procedure with the blotting paper padding as before.

I’ve been aiming for the perfect print, but have yet to achieve this. The following are the best I could manage on Zerkal 120gsm Printmaking Paper.

I shall be submitting the above prints to my tutor as Task 2 (Project 6) for Assignment 2.

I had a couple of attempts at using Fabriano UNICA 250gsm Printmaking Paper which is quite textured. These had patchy results:

I am very pleased with the composition. Perhaps, given the opportunity to redo this image, I would not cut outlines of trees as I have done so here. Instead of spikey white outlines, I would make the tree line more gently undulating. I think the image has impact – especially in black ink – and just enough in the way of contrast. There’s enough to keep the eye entertained as it travels top left down to bottom right. There is a noticeable diagonal too in the line of vegetation separating the solitary angler from the potential busy-ness of the allotment.

The theme of place has been met here by the significance of the location of what I have entitled “Abbey View” It was taken from a view of St Albans Abbey from the Alban Way – a much-frequented highway for pedestrians and cyclists alike (plus the odd skateboarder) – in leafy Hertfordshire. The reference photo was taken between lockdowns in 2020. It holds significance for me as it represents those freedoms, in our own back yard, which we take so much for granted. Our naturally “green and pleasant land” appears to have sent forth sentinels in the form of a virus, as though in an attempt to keep humanity in check.

Meanwhile, we try to go about our business as usual. We walk our dogs, pursue our pastimes; if so inclined, we visit places of worship full of the hope that this too shall pass.

I was tempted to call this image “How We Used To Live” after an old educational TV programme we used to watch years ago at my junior school in the mid 70s. But I decided against this as it felt far too portentous.

This piece is about how things are, how they once were, and perhaps, if we’re lucky, how they shall continue to be. It is my hope that this isn’t too fuzzy an explanation for the reasoning behind choosing this scene. On the surface it is a depiction of a scene of tranquility. Though I am no Christian, I hoped to convey, by the looming image of the Abbey, that a higher spiritual force is at work, and for this, and our environment, we as a species aught to be showing more respect.

I returned today to my single colour linocut of the View of St Albans Abbey. Using a flipped photo of my last proof, I drew onto a printout of this using a white gell pen. This gave me an idea of how dense my mark making should be around those areas I had highlighted yesterday. I made further cuts accordingly. I then took a proof as follows:

The unfortunate splodges are caused by remnants of vegetable oil used to clean the plate. These had become trapped in the grooves of the cuts and bled out onto the paper whilst in the jack press. I resolved, in future, to use white spirit to clean the plate itself, whilst still using the oil to clean the tools and equipment. However, this proof was sufficient to give an indication of where to go next.

I made more cuts in and around the vegetation at the bank of the stream and behind the dog walker, as well as the roofing on some of the huts. I then took a further proof as follows:

I shall make a few more cuts tomorrow morning concentrating on the allotment and the area of the stream. I am happy with the rest of the composition – except perhaps for the speckling effect on the treeline in the background – but on the whole I feel it is a successful image. I intend to proof one last time and then set about producing final prints in blue, blue-green and in black ink to submit for assignment 2.

For the last couple of days I’ve been playing with this design. I started with the following poorly defined ghost prints using leftover ink straight from backdrawn plates:

I then used a mask of the Buddha and the elephant to give some definition to the background in ultramarine blue:

Then, after they had dried sufficiently, I added a backdrawn outline using yellow mixed with a tad of ultramarine blue oil based ink:

I’m hesitant to add more layers to these as I risk spoiling them. But I think they could benefit from “sweetening up” using a bit of pink or lavender colour. It would help to bring out the green.

I’m running out of time. This first assignment is due to be posted on Thursday (day after tomorrow!) Though I can’t risk spoiling it, I can’t really send them as is either. Perhaps I shall test out my theory on the weakest version first to see what occurs.

Thinking about it, I feel I could have enjoyed this Part 1 of Printmaking 1 more if I’d been less precious about trying to get a perfect print. I intend to enjoy Part 2 more as it involves linocut, which is far less hit and miss than monoprinting. I’ve just placed an order for some assorted A3 coloured paper. I may do more experiments with monoprinting using these in conjunction with (or at least alongside) working through Part 2.

Today’s Printmaking session started off a bit rubbish, but went on to improve somewhat. I seem to be relearning what I’ve already learned – remembering to leave plenty white space, for example – as initially today’s prints were ill-defined at best.

In the above prints I returned to the technique of brushing the ink onto the plate (glass) but this time I used dampened paper to get as much of the ink as possible from the plate and onto the paper. Here I have used smooth Zerkal 120gsm paper and a textured Fabriano paper 250gsm.

I decided that the black background was far too heavy and opted for the lighter terracotta colour instead. But here I wish I’d left some white areas on the elephant so that it could be more easily recognized as such, rather than a peanut butter coloured splodge.

I had a break and returned, determined to pull something of value out of the morning’s work. The following prints were done on A3 photocopier paper. My intention was to produce masks from photocopies of my initial sketch:

These copies I placed onto the back of the A3 copier paper as it sat on the lightly ink rolled plate and I have then drawn onto the photocopy to produce backdrawn outlines of the design:

These I intend to build upon using layers and by masking areas using cutouts from the photocopies of my sketch.

Manyana.

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks attempting to build up print layers on multiple prints of the same image of a violin – apart from a slight deviation to play with the face of the Buddha which, as it’s a negative mask using white ink, is only really effective on black or coloured paper).

It has been a frustrating time as I’ve tried to perfect a spot free image each time. I used A3 photocopier paper as it was plentiful – having bought it at a car boot sale at a greatly reduced price. I had begun this part of the Printmaking Unit thinking to vary my paper more widely, as is suggested in the course text. However, I have had such patchy results that I abandoned this approach in Part 1 Project 1.

Yesterday I returned to part 1 and, using oil based ink, I was able to achieve the following images by first dampening the paper (Zerkal and cartridge) by soaking it for 10 minutes or so before printing on it. I had thought that this method would only be necessary for producing intaglio prints. I feel it’s useful for Monoprinting too if you are using oil based ink. If I had still been using water based ink, this would have been inadvisable, of course.

In the past week I gradually accumulated enough prints on which to experiment with second and third layers, allowing for “wastage” of those that may not make the grade.

Today I built up a third layer onto some of these prints in an attempt to create interesting textured effects

Above are a mix of monoprints using oil based ink on A3 photocopier paper. Methods include back drawing, the use of masks and bubble wrap to form impressions onto the inked plate before taking a print.

Tomorrow I shall do more of the same, using different colours and different objects for added texture.