I recently had an incredibly useful session in the print room with my lecturer and the print technician, who both showed me a lot about lino printing. We used the University’s lovely but neglected Albion press, of which there are two in Europe, both situated in our University. I was immediately told not to use the water based ink I’d been leaning towards, but instead the oil based, which is a very different texture. Padding was another thing I knew nothing of but is very important in getting the correct density of ink in the image. There seems to be two main variables- the ink and pressure, so it should be pretty straightforward to work out what is lacking.

Using the press shows the flaws of a lino more than hand pulling, the pressure forces the paper in to the hollow on the lino and picks up all the recessed ink, so I think I’ll have to re cut most of the daisies image- the pigeons is ok in the main, as the large expanses of black, uncut lino mean the paper can be pushed so low. I love how the grain of the lino shows through, the texture is so much nicer than any flat black of modern printing.

I haven’t posted for quite a while, but I have been busy. My current university project is an anniversary hardack edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, with at least 14 chapter illustrations, some full page and some vignettes, so I’ve been quite busy reading the damn thing, researching and drawing for it. These are some of my initial drawings for the themes of the book. I wanted to make it quite new looking, but still referencing the media of the time.

I’m carving each illustation as a lino cut (i know it should be wood cut but I am a poor student!), and so I’m focusing on shapes and lines rather than colours. I think each image will be one colour, which means an added simplicity which seems to complicate the planning.

Tags: valeriepica, illustration, flower, floral, natural history

Just been messing around with some printing techniques lately. These are a few monoprinting images, a technique which is about the simplest method you can get. I quite like the messy look of these, you can get a smoother effect by blotting first, but I prefer not to. The image above is the pen drawing I did in order to get the topmost image. It’s funny how just using a different technique can give a totally different look to a simple drawing.