LinocutsBy Stephan Kyek

Specially made for Stephanie Kyek

Information on Linocuts A linocut is a printmaking technique It requires the material called linoleum Although linoleum as a floor covering dates to the 1860s, the linocut was invented

by the artists of Die Brücke in Germany between 1905-13. At first they described their prints as woodcuts, which sounded more respectable.

Pablo Picasso used printmaking technigues for some of his images

For Your Linocut You Need: A Linoleom Board Multiple Chisels in multiple cutting

sizes Paper An ink press (available in Art Class) And obviously paint

Step One First plan out what you want to draw

onto your linocut into your journal

Then gently with a pencil copy of the journal onto your linocut

Make sure that when you draw on the linoleum board, that it is a negative image. To understand this you need to know that when the board is chiselled out and covered in ink, the board is then to be pressed on a sheet of paper and creates a mirror effect. As an example, when you look in the mirror, the reflection shows you from a back-to-front angle. When you hold up your right hand, the mirror shows that you are holding up the left hand. The same effect happens with the printing the linoleum board.

Step TwoSTART CHISELLING

What you do now is start chiselling. This is easy as long as you have the right chisels.

Make sure that you only chisel out the places that you want to stay white on the sheet. The more you chisel, the more white spaces there will be. Sometimes you don’t want to chisel anything so that you have a colourful background.

For instance, if you chisel outline of the star in the right diagram, then the outline will remain white because when you use the roller to roll on the paint on the board. But because you chiselled out the outline, the roller cannot get the paint into the gaps, so that is why it stays white.

Warning: The chisels have dangerous edges and therefore make sure that you always point them away from you whilst chiselling and use a non-slip mat to stop the linoleum board from sliding away

ChiselDrawing

Step Three Once you have done your

chiselling, your linocut should look like this:

As you can see, the chiselled out section is going to be white because when you roll on the ink, the paint will be on the surface of the board and not inside the groves.

Step FourRolling on the Paint

Choose a ink and place it on the corner of a ink board

Using the rollers, dip it in the ink and then roll out a thin layer of that ink onto your ink board. Make sure you make the ink as thin as possible.

After the roller is entirely covered in ink, roll it onto your linoleum . If your roller loses all its ink before you have covered the linoleum then just roll it over the board of ink and then again onto the linoleum until it is completely covered in ink.

RolerGrip

Step FivePressing the Picture

Using the printing press that is available inside the art class, start pressing out your linoleum board, this is done with four layers:Layer 1: A thin large square sheet to stop

the board from slipping

Layer 4: Another large square sheet

Layer 2: Linoleum

BoardLayer 3: A thin

sheet to print the image onto

Step SixThe Grand Final

In the end, your paper print could look like this:

This person may not have made such a clear image but as you can see, the chiselled out part of the linoleum stayed white whilst the bits he left behing, turned balck because he/she used black ink.

You can obviously use different colour inks to make it look better and you can put different colours onto the

linoleum board with different rollers to make a mix of different colours on the paper.

You can also put different colours ontop of each other by letting the paper dry and then adding a new colour.

Last Words You have just seen how to make your first linocut and maybe

even just made one.

If you are interested in learning more about the art of making a linocut, please refer to Mr. Single in the art room.

Thank-You for your time and have fun in the next art class,

Congratulations