I must say there have been a few changes to the artists linoleum used to make linocuts/linoprints over the last 30 years or so. Many people will remember those old hard brown squares of lino we valiantly tried to carve in our high school art classes! Well they have progressed since then…thank goodness!!
Below are some of the samples of the lino that I have used over the past 20 years – much of which is from the past 10 years. Just a few small thoughts of my experiences with these different types of artists lino.
This is the original hard lino from a very long time ago….
nostalgic…but it is hard to carve, turning many a high school student off linocuts for life!
This is the original grey silkcut lino/
I used this over a few years
Many of my earlier linoprints use this lino.
This is the light brown lino silkcut replaced the lovely grey with.
I found it difficult to carve.
So sourced some other linoleum listed below….
This is a very flexible easy to carve lino.
It has a smooth surface for printing and does not need to be heated for carving. However I found for fine detail work it does have a tendency to chip off a little.
This is Armstrong dark brown lino.
I have found it carves nicely and easily but again can ‘chip’ off smaller fine details more easily than other lino but a little less than the light red brown lino above
This is the current light grey silkcut lino.
It is a little firmer to carve than the above 2 brown lino but it does chip less so can be better for finer detail. I must say I do like this new style the silkcut have produced.
May 28, 2009 at 9:18 pm
hi there! hopefully you get this, i know you posted this last year! i wanted to know because i am just now starting to experiment with incorporating linocuts into my line of greeting cards. do you talk anywhere about the kinds of ink to use? i used screenprint ink, but not sure how diff that is from block ink. and do you clean the block after so that they can be reused in another run of printing? i posted my very first rough draft print last night, still got a ways to go. i made a cherry tree with a cage, because after i print i will hotglue a folded origami crane sitting on top of the branch. any info you have as far as the ink would be great, i’ll keep reading your posts too! maybe you could follow my blog too!
May 31, 2009 at 3:41 am
Hi David,
Screen printing inks are designed to be pushed through a fine screen so are not really the right consistency for relief printing.
Relief printing inks have a ‘thicker’ quality that can be rolled out with a roller or brayer and then transferred onto the block for printing.
There are two basic types of relief printing inks for linocuts – water-based and oil-based. I use oil-based ink as I then handcolour using watercolours – they need be cleaned up using turps or something like vegetable oil etc. You can also use water-based relief printing inks – which have the advantage of having a water wash up. Many linocut artists use waterbased inks especially when using multiple blocks or reduction blocks using different colours.
I prefer the effect I can achieve for my work with wildflowers etc using the hand colouring with watercolour. I also enjoy working with this particular process at this time.
All the best with your linocuts and your cards.
kind regards
Lyn