First, I'll admit: I really had no idea what I was getting into with linoleum printing at all. All I really knew was that I had come across some really cool limited edition art prints (like this one and this one) and thought, "Hey! Those look really cool! I should do that!" One can, of course, reproduce similar effects using Photoshop, but for someone like me who is still more or less a novice in the illustration world, the easiest way to get nice textures is to . . . use real materials.
If you clicked through to the links, you'll note that neither of the two prints I was inspired by were actually linoleum prints -- the first was a letterpress print, and the second was a screenprint. I really like both of those styles and hope later to be able to make prints that way, but a letterpress requires an actual wooden press (thus the name) which would require either a lot of money or time to construct. As far as screenprinting goes . . . essentially you use a light-exposure technique to create a stencil of your design on a cloth screen. For reasons best known to myself (ha), I decided to start with something I had done (sort of) in middle school art class instead (hey, we carved little 2"x2" stamps out of rubber), because the principle was more straightforward and I was more confident in myself not to screw it up. I watched the Dick Blick videos (yeah, I know) here and here and decided that I could handle a process that was more or less making a giant stamp.
There were a few things I did not bargain on; one is that it's much harder to transfer an image exactly with linocut, because you are drawing it twice, more or less -- once with pen on the block, and once with the lino cutter as you chisel out the unwanted pieces. I also found that it's sort of a bad idea to draw the image on a different piece of paper, because the level and type of detail one gets with a pencil are not the same as the equivalent with the cutter. At some point I will probably learn to screenprint as well, in no small part because I also didn't figure on this:
This is a linoleum cutter, sketched very handily with my new tablet (heh, I'm learning new artsy things all over.) What it also represents is a tool that will make you lose feeling in your hands if used excessively, which I most certainly did in the first few days of experimentation. Screenprinting, I think, is less likely to cause muscle strain. The little cheap Blick-brand cutter I bought for $7 came with five blades; so far I've use mainly the deep V cutter (enough that I ordered another box of them rather than risk the one I have getting too dull to use) and the deep U cutter. I also decided to use Blick blockprinting ink, the main attraction of which is its relatively low price. I think at some point I will switch to oil-based rather than water-based ink, because this ink dries extremely quickly (meaning that I waste a lot by the time I get it spread out), and smudges very easily if I try to add other paints or color on top of the print.
Here are some photos from my first print, which was sort of cute but in several ways was moderately disastrous. Note: Do not attempt to make a heavily detailed two-color print on the first go. It's just not a great idea.
One of Mom's old pan lids got commissioned into service as a linoleum shred catcher/inking plate. I bought a bench hook, but have not really used it a lot yet. This was the second color. . .
And here is me trying (somewhat hopelessly) to line up the second color with the first. It was a miracle it worked as well as it did, but it still came out . . . kind of goofy. This print series ended after about three.
