Relief Printmaking Skills Set - Colour Reduction Test Plate

 

During term 2 we have been working on colour reduction prints. You can see how the layers are built up in this video from Harvard Art Museums.

I went random with my colours. Sometimes putting lighter colours over darker colours which gives a speckled effect as some of the first layer shows through subsequent layers. They are super bright!

Relief Printmaking Skills Set - Black & White Urban Landscape

This term at TAFE we were working on an A3 print with the theme "Urban Landscape". We took photos of buildings in Perth; mine is inside the TAFE library. To transfer them onto a lino block we took a laser copy, taped it face down on the block and wet the back with turps. The block was then run through a tight press to transfer the image.

Inside the TAFE library

The blocks were carved with lino tools and printed with oil based block ink. In this print (below) I wiped off some of the ink with a rag to give more white areas and the duct pipes.

We also made an embossed print by using wet paper and a tight press to force the paper into the spaces carved from the lino. You can see my block wasn't super clean but I preferred this to a completely white embossing. 

The next experiment was with chine colle (shin-col-ay). This is a technique where paper (in this case coloured tissue paper) is glued and then lain glue side UP on top of an inked bock. When the print is taken the paper gets glued to the background paper with the print on top. 

Relief Printmaking Skills Set - Black & White Test Plate

 

This week at TAFE we tried out our new lino tools to see how many different marks we could make on an A5 piece of lino. The test block was printed with oil based inks. 

Relief Printmaking Skills Set - Introduction

 

This semester I'm studying relief printmaking at North Metro Tafe.  Our first class was all about finding our way around the print studio, becoming familiar with the inks, roller, presses and the clean up. We used simple pieces of open weave fabric to make these abstract prints in primary colours. Some of my prints (like the one above) have a rainbow background where 2 ink colours were applied to a piece of MDF before the inky fabric was laid on top and the whole thing passed through the press.