Part 2: Project 7 - Multi-block Linoprint Editioning

Continuing on the theme of 'place', I decided to pick another of my Henstead Exotic gardens photo's. This time I chose the banana leaf because of it's beautiful colours and pattern.

Sketchbook:

This time I approached the preparation differently and instead of using the grey paper I did a sketch in my sketchbook and used coloured pencils and black pen to work out how the design would go. This worked a lot better for me. For the first prints I decided I wanted to stick to the original colours of the banana leaf and experiment with other colours afterwards.

This was my plan for the three lino cuts and the colours.

I decided to stick with A5 size for this project and drew around my lino to get the correct size and then sketched my design in a simple way.

This time I used Canson marker paper to draw out my design and then transfer it to the lino blocks using carbon paper. This worked much better as the marker paper is thin. (I forgot to reverse the design but I still feel it works well)

Lino Blocks:

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2.

3.

Lino Cuts:

I used  2, 4 and 10 lino cutters - v's and curves, these were my favourites from the previous tests and worked well for my design.

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3.

Proofing:

Print 1 - Green:

Should have used the jig first as not doing so really affected my next batch of prints badly.

Jig:

Following the instructions I made a jig to use in the next printing part of the process. I used thick cardboard from a used up sketch pad.

Using the jig

Close up.

Print 2 - Dark Magenta:

These were a real disaster, because I hadn't used the jig for the first print, the second was totally misaligned despite my efforts to try to line it up.

A couple of these are a bit better aligned but not great. I was really disappointed with these, 

but kept going to see what the third layer would look like on top.

I do really like how the markings around the centre stem came out, 

I think that looks quite effective.

Print 3 - Black:

All these were pretty much a disaster. They just look messy.

These came out much better but I noticed there were conflicting lines interfering with the lines underneath, so I decided to go back and cut those out of the lino and re-print.

Lino 3 Adjusted:

I cut the lines I felt were wrong on the left and right of the stem.

Proof:

This didn't really help to see if this would improve the print and so I inked it to see which bit to cut and that worked much better. 

Re-print of original colours:

These came out so much better.

Alternative Colours:

I then started to think what other colour versions I could do with this design, here is my sketchbook work with my ideas:

 I initially was trying to keep the colours in keeping with the actual colours of the plant 

but a more saturated version.

Then I thought back to the colours I was using in monoprinting and what my design 

might look like with a totally different colouring. 

There are so  many options it was hard to narrow it down and not do them all.

First Alternative colour: 

I then printed a navy version, which I  mixed myself. I really like the colour and this was the best version of the four I made.

Next Layer:

I tried to line these up much better than the previous batch and they did come out much better. I really like the contrast of the magenta with the navy. All printed on Zerkall paper.

Final Layer and Editioning:

This one came out slightly off, I marked it the artists proof 

(not sure if that's right when its a mis-print?)

Navy versions editioned.

These all came out fairly well, I was quite pleased with them, the changes I made on lino 3 definitely helped to make the final print layer cleaner. 

They aren't perfect but much better than the first batch.

Close up of the editioning.

Second Alternative Colour: 

Artists Proof

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2/2

**Updated Photos:

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2/2

I am so pleased with these prints, the colours look amazing and really bring a whole new look to the print. Some of them are better aligned than others but overall I am really pleased with them and glad I decided to do a bright version.

Reflection:
Learning to print three colour blocks has been really challenging, its tested me trying to get them aligned and working out the design. My end result wasn't as good as I hoped but I do feel I have progressed with the practice and achieved a fairly good end result. I love the brightly coloured pink version at the end, I nearly didn't do these but wanted to connect to the previous monoprinting style of colours I used and see what they would look like. I think they turned out successful in terms of the colours with the design, the light blue really finishes the layers off well. I like it a lot better than the black. Hopefully the amount of practice I've had with this section of the course will help me produce an even better print for the next part.


The banana knowledge platform of the ProMusa network. 2020. Banana Leaf | The Banana Knowledge Platform Of The Promusa Network. [online] Available at: <http://www.promusa.org/Banana+leaf> [Accessed 19 June 2020].