u/IntheHotofTexas

Last time, I reported on my first attempt to do a three-color linocut using a method Picasso frequently used. He inked an entire page so he could "draw" in linocut by carving to let the preinked paper color show where he cut, the top color being his inking of the block. A number of his bullfighting prints were done that way.

https://preview.redd.it/csb6jgq27dkh1.png?width=328&format=png&auto=webp&s=57f7982407b11ab9271c8f365b893899ed235f1f

I wanted to see if I could limit the colors to specific cut areas. Let's Look at the block again.

https://preview.redd.it/db41y6z97dkh1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5294f77cf09ad74770d3fd0e885bcac6cb5a106

The results were troubling. It seems that the yellow ink I used on the paper to create the fire color interacts with ink very differently from the bare paper. You can see here how the yellow ink seemed to make the ink bead up. It was left looking like over-inking, but it was not. The paper without the yellow ink printed fine. (You can also see that I mistakenly printed the yellow ink in too small an area, leaving the firelighted figures white.)

https://preview.redd.it/4vbs3o3r7dkh1.jpg?width=1620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62112f675f5a036bc3d321db73917195d3a70a66

In addition, the yellow inked area, being apparently repulsing to the ink, seems to have spoiled the even ink on the brayer. As the brayer passed out of the pre-inked area, it left bands that could not be tolerated.

This would not have bothered Picasso, since he was printing on a page completely inked with the show-thru color, so he could adjust inking to suit. Likely using less ink.

So, I began thinking about other ways to underlay color. I decided to try chein colle. I used thin Korean mulberry paper. I thought the chaff in it would work okay with the fire and ground. I tried applying Nori paste to the back of the color paper and placing it over the inked block. It was a mess. Very difficult to handle when damp. And absolutely no room to adjust positions as it now had black ink spoiling it. And worse, when I pressed, it tended to remain on the block. Perhaps my inexperience in chein colle was showing there.

But I decided it would be simpler to apply to color mulberry paper to the printmaking paper first. I made templates by drawing on my scanned copy of the block and overlaying Dura-Lar and outlining on that. I cut the openings away.

https://preview.redd.it/ykned8oo9dkh1.jpg?width=1620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09030bd5209191616902511922c622a8e04251d1

These would serve to create the shapes on the mulberry paper which I cut out with a swivel blade.

Because in this design, the areas outside the actual color paper were black, I could draw on the printmaking paper in the outlines of the cut paper in pencil without worry about it appearing in the print, which it might have done had the block ink instead have been a light color. It was easy to apply Nori strictly within those pencil outlines and to apply the color paper, squeegee it, and leave it to dry under pressure. Being wet, it would tend to curl the paper otherwise.

https://preview.redd.it/v0jn7cz8adkh1.jpg?width=1620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd6156a685555effa012a03580383e6900dddeee

I wasn't worried about any sort of rigorous registration at this stage, and I often trim my prints back to the image only and mount them on toned drawing paper for framing. So, I cut printmaking paper to match the block. I inked and printed.

This is the stage where lessons start appearing. One is that even the thin mulberry paper is enough to want to leave white in the shadow of its edge. It's not so bad as a hair or debris on a block, but it was evident. I had adjust inking, upping the amount of ink to just short of over-inking, and press hard while inking the block with a soft brayer. That more or less filled in those shadow whites. Easy enough in the future now that I know.

Let me show the print and then talk about other lessons. Before printing, I cleaned up the cuts, blanking the faces that I thought were awkward and cutting more black out of the base of the fire.

https://preview.redd.it/rsskwkw2bdkh1.jpg?width=1620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5cf6a0a8b7cc78d1ee30771ab7c22e52dd859a8

First. I'm pleased with the look of the orange paper with the mulberry pieces embedded as the firelit ground. The yellow, too. Not as obvious, but I think the flames benefit from not being flat, featureless color.

Lesson One. I have to be careful of places where the show-thru color pieces might leave a gap. One such is under the central figures armpits. Since those spaces were cut, without the color paper, they print white. Another is above his right arm. That is where yellow paper meets orange paper. That apparently left a canyon that was impossible to ink, no matter how much ink or how much brayer pressure. In the next attempt, I will see about cutting the show-thrus to leave no gap. Also, or alternatively, I can try inking that area with a dauber, as if it was intaglio. But it will likely require both measures, because a canyon will also not print, no matter how heavily daubed. Not with linocut pressures and dry paper.

Lesson Two. There is still a surface texture difference between the inked mulberry paper and the plain inked printmaking paper. I can't just put mulberry paper cut to cover the entire page. I want to leave white stars showing. But the different in the two surfaces is nothing like between the pre-inked paper and plain paper. That actually corrupted the behavior of the ink. This does not. It's just a difference of surface. I think I can finish the prints with matte lacquer and produce an even surface overall.

I have no idea where the two little black places on the ground came from. Might be damaged mulberry paper. Or maybe just plain poor hygiene. I'll watch for that next time.

I am confident the next one will work fine. So, I won't inflict another report on you unless some important lesson comes out of it.

But this project has started me thinking about a larger and more complex project. Larger block and more colors. The available colors of mulberry paper is very wide, and if you add in tissue paper, it's even greater and doesn't have the fiber of mulberry. Normally plain tissue paper, not wet hardy tissue, is avoided in chein colle due to it coming apart when damp and ending up as a wad of wet paper. But the way I will apply it to the printmaking paper, that won't happen. I can use Dura-Lae templates to nail the landing sites on the paste exactly the first time.

I'm thinking things like one of those colorful Italian villages. Or people with colorful umbrellas. The method is suited to many linocuts that would be colored in with watercolor or pencil. I think that using the mulberry paper adds interest more than plain, flat color. And mulberry paper is readily available with various kinds of color bits embedded. Might be useful.

https://preview.redd.it/2jbjxhvthdkh1.png?width=349&format=png&auto=webp&s=204339b8dc823f1b44b2d56b976a7a002717f727

This is interim, because I had things to learn and mistakes to make and things to try.

I wanted to do some multiple color prints that (1) used one carved block and (2) was genuinely editionable, all prints essentially identical within the limits of the medium, I remembered some work by Warren Criswell who got the idea from Picasso. Picasso did two-color linos in which he first printed a specific color evenly over paper. He then could "draw" in that color by cutting lines and areas into the block and inking it with another color. The color that had been printed on the paper was revealed in the cuts. A lot of this stylized bulls are done that way. I kind of did it. I ended up using another block.

I wanted more than two colors, black and two others. I developed an image of people dancing around a fire at night. I envisioned the fire as essentially yellow with red touches reflecting off parts of the dancers that faced the fire. I chose yellow ocher for the ground they danced on as it seemed about right for dirt or sand lit by fire. The dancers, the parts away from the fire were to be black. I wanted yellow embers flying and white points of stars in the black sky.

https://preview.redd.it/fp6xnh0plzjh1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a579c6bcfa6dac43578278a6acafa3b09f839ce5

Then, I carved a Japanese vinyl 8"x12" block. Now, remember that the ground under the dancers is to be yellow ocher already on the paper. Fairly large areas. Instead of carving with lino tools, I used an ultrasonic cutter to remove those areas. No chance of chatter. I carved the flames with a "V" gouge, used a small V to do the embers and a very small Phillps head screwdriver for the stars.

https://preview.redd.it/820747bpmzjh1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2157257e4578266fe999b9246ff440c74dc1eaa2

Next, I had to prepare the paper. For that, I made a traditional lino jigsaw block. The bottom piece is for the yellow ocher. The center top for the fire and embers. The stars would be in the top corner pieces which will not be inked.

https://preview.redd.it/hvpt7pr8wzjh1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e5a423d0527fa8a453114b194e7e74b341066b9

I inked each piece and placed then on the bed of my cold laminating press and impressed six sheets of paper. I made rather lackadaisical efforts to get the paper over the jigsaw in the same position it would be when it was time to print the black. I let the preprinted color sheets dry.

I inked the vinyl block and printed it in black to the prepared paper. I was not very rigorous about registration. That can come when I get the technique down.

I got this.

https://preview.redd.it/xhz4re3qozjh1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6387a20ad733b443c84a2587e298d3c253f3cb22

I consider it proof of concept. I was unsure what I wanted the ground to look like, but thinly inked felt right. But that may not yield a properly editionable result. I learned some things. One is that paper with block ink already on it does not interact with ink from the block like virgin paper. You can see here that the top middle jigsaw block is visible as having a different texture than the corner which were plain paper.

This gave me a lot of grief. The difference in surfaces seems to have caused inking problems. was seeing banding in the plain areas. I think that was from the brayer exchanging ink differently in the yellow area. Because these are small areas, the brayer was suffering different effects as part of it rolled though the precolored yellow paper, creating bands on the brayer that showed up in the print. The only reason you don't see the bands here is a lot of work done on the block during printing.

I'm thinking about inking the two corner jigsaw pieces with white ink so they will have the same surface as the rest. And I think I will switch to my other press bed that has the TB registration pins installed and register that way.

I also said I wanted some red effects in the fire. I used school glue in bottles with small needle tips to draw the red on a piece of ABS plastic the same size as the block.

https://preview.redd.it/ti5dnoiuqzjh1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a75d1a2782b629234df796013a11d648a064195d

I did manage to get some ink on it and pressed it to the print. Not wonderful but again, the concept is not too bad.

https://preview.redd.it/9cnhdtf2rzjh1.jpg?width=676&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6138dcbce169a1b48a810d53f9018115683798cb

Inking it turned out to be a nightmare. It is just about impossible, even with the 1/2" brayer, to avoid inking up the rest of the block. I may change to a stencil, registered to the block. Or maybe just spot some red through the yellow ink on the slab.

Designwise, I think I would forego trying to put features on the fire-lit faces. They didn't work. I'll go back and carve them to be blank white as overlit faces might look. I also need to cut more deeply on the flying embers, making them more distinct streaks. Easy enough.

You can also see in this last image how the ink on the yellow looks over-inked, even though I used the right amount on the slab. You can see that the adjacent part, the ocher, didn't do that. Some property of the yellow ink That's odd, because I routinely ink very smooth hard ABS plastic blocks without issue. Needs some experiments with other yellows. It has to be something about the ink.

So, there it is. Upward and onward. I'll report back when I nail it all down.

This was a rework of something I did in lino way back when I started. It's an oldtime Texas dance hall a couple of counties over. This depicts it in the past when those cars were new. Hasn't changed much but it's now called Gruene Hall without the "'s"

Okay. This is engraved for relief on ABS plastic. A bit unusual as it is almost entirely done using a power rotary tool with conical file bits. I almost always have to recut these, as it's very hard to judge the effects of the carving, like in the roadway. I usually sneak up on, cutting lighter first and cutting more according to how is looks in first proof, which this is.

I also used by masking and ink removal method to pull ink out of the sky. I didn't want a blank white sky but I was first thinking of it as a daylight scene. But I didn't pull as much ink as I intended. That's dependent on how many passes with a clean brayer, removing ink from areas not protected by a mask.

So, it's much darker than was thinking, but I've left it sitting up and viewing it for 24 hours, and I may not mess with it more. The roadway is indeed dark. For daylight, I usually go for a lighter gravel look. But the dark sky gives it, I think, an impression of evening. It works with the darker road. That seems appropriate for a dance hall that was operating mostly at night.

Does it make good visual sense?

https://preview.redd.it/jdvwhv702ggh1.png?width=1223&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5ff6509fe98bd05c4cbd724ee149b4e28baa3c2

Scene from Pablo Neruda's poem, The Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks.

All those men were there inside, when she came in totally naked.

They had been drinking: they began to spit.

Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.

She was a mermaid who had lost her way.

The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.

Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.

Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.

Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.

They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,

and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor.

She did not speak because she had no speech.

Her eyes were the colour of distant love,

her twin arms were made of white topaz.

Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light,

and suddenly she went out by that door.

Entering the river she was cleaned, shining like a white stone in the rain, and without looking back she swam again swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.

Proof. ABS plastic engraving, relief printed 8"x12". This one was carved entirely with a power rotary tool and various conical file bits and a few fine lines with a small burin. Doing that with this material is a way to produce credible rough textures in wood and stone. Where rustic characters might have rough clothing, I leave some texture there too. Because perfectly clear broad white areas are troublesome in this 1/20th inch thick material, the window glass has been cut entirely away with an ultrasonic cutter.

https://preview.redd.it/lblpbdpoz9fh1.png?width=4480&format=png&auto=webp&s=2176e11a323804ea97fceaf0fcd6803ae2be86ed

Many newer linocut printmakers begin thinking about acquiring a press but are put off by the high prices of etching presses. But while it can be used, the high pressure that an etching press can produce is neither necessary nor desirable for linocut. This is my video on what I think is the better solution. (Sorry, I forgot to put my mic on.)

https://reddit.com/link/1uyf2bi/video/6qhcvrf4nndh1/player

About fed up with Reddit. Got ntechnical message to reset, did that, and since then can't post, chat, etc., but can maintain account, change password, etc. Does posting here get a shadow ban check?

Titled DESPAIR, this ABS project is a bit different. No very large white areas that need cutting away in order to print. The generally shabby nature of the scene makes more noise acceptable, in line with the rundown appearance of the place.

Sharp eyes will note that in drawing the cartoon, I omitted one side of the window inset frame. Fixed that on the fly in cutting. I tried a couple of things using the halftone rake. (Lino tools don't work on ABS, so it's all engraver's tools and rotary tools.) The rake did the crosshatches on the mattress end and multilining on the pants.

Lots of thing to fix. The mattress top need the whites cut deeper to make more clear the buttons and folds, but I still want it to look grubby. The floorboards need similar work, although I don't want to overdo it. 

The rotary tool chattered in cutting the wall on the right. Easily fixed. Needs some edge bevel cleanup around the borders of the arms and the shirt. There's an extra ridge on the cheek that needs to go. Easy enough. I could cut the big white parts out entirely with the ultrasonic cutter, but as I said, I like some shabby effect. Left side under the window needs cutting down, as does the right side. 

I think I may leave the finelining of the pants alone. The scene out the window is a muddle and needs a lot of work to make sense. I may lose the mountain and make part of it into more tree. Obviously, the house itself needs deeper cutting to print white. 

Everything I want to do is doable. I don't think I will need to completely recut the plate. When everything is fixed, the whole appearance will brighten up.

If you want to know more about ABS engraver's plastic as a relief material, see my earlier posts. The primary difference from lino is that you can't cut so deeply on a 1/20" thin plate. So, unless you completely cut out a white area, which I've done on other pieces, you will have to proof to see how much ink is landing in white cut areas.

Here are plate with transfer, cartoon, cut plate, and 1st proof.

DESPAIR - Cartoon, Plates and Proof

Last time I showed the unsatisfactory WIP of my first use of ABS engraver's plastic as a relief medium.

1st and 2nd Experience With ABS Plastic Relief Engraving : r/printmaking

This is the rework of the Wolf Woman piece. The image is an adaptation of my original painting, Wolf Woman, the Southwestern folk character who wanders the wilderness collecting the bones of wolves who have died unnatural deaths. When she collects enough for a full set, the goes to her cave and sings the wolf back to life.

This was cut into 8"x12" ABS sign-making plastic plate which has a thin green top layer and white core. Tools are engraving tools, gravers, burins, etc., because linocut tools won't work on it. It is only 1/20" thick, so it can't be cut very deep. Therefore, inking must be done delicately, with thin layers, a hard brayer and deliberation.

Even so, this print has some chattery places in the white areas. That would normally be dealt with by using the rotary tool with cone file bit to take those area down even more. I didn't worry about this this time, because later today, I will get my new ultrasonic cutter, and I want to see if I can use that to cut away all the large whites. That way, I can lay the plate on newsprint to ink. Any ink that would have soiled the white area because of the thin plate will just end up on the newsprint and be discarded.

The whites will still need some work around the edges. I can't cut away all but a slender black line. But deepening the whites areas consumes a lot of time normally, and what can be cutaway and the cut edges beveled will make things a lot more efficient and easier to print. And I can cut away things like the spaces between the hanging hair. That kind of narrow spaces are hard to file down.

So, it's still work in progress, and I'll update with how the cutter works out. I've come to really like this material. The rotary cone file makes possible more subtle effects in places like the flames than could be easily done with lino tools.

Here are plate and print.

https://preview.redd.it/2ztj56mjp60h1.png?width=3226&format=png&auto=webp&s=d245532d41745085782947e83aa11237f0ec8445

I have also reworked the "Poulet! Poulet!" subject in ABS that I also showed last time as unsatisfactory WIP last time. It's still a learning exercise, but it deals with some different issues than Wolf Woman. I'll post that tomorrow, and it should appear the next day.

And I have put a complete discussion of using ABS, the tools and such into my new blog:

https://wakkawakkastudio.blogspot.com/2026/05/relief-printmaking-with-abs-engravers.html

I've been posting some learning experiences with interpreting my acrylic painting of the Wolf Woman in relief printing. And I've tried another in 8"x12" ABS, interpreting one of my favorite scenes in a favorite film, "To Catch a Thief". In the film, Grace Kelly's character is driving her sportscar like mad to get Cary Grant's character away from the police. She has to brake hard for a chicken crossing the road (no doubt setting up the classic joke), and after they drive on, they hear a crash. The next scene is the police with their car up on a rock wall, and the chicken standing around unfazed. The driver is on the radiophone trying to explain, "Poulet! Poulet!".

This is ABS engraver's plastic, a thin plastic sheet with a very thin color layer on one side. Green is a good color for showing transfers. You carve through to white. The whole sheet is very thin, and it is harder than lino. Lino tools don't work. It needs engravers tools, so this is done with Lyons burins and other tools and a Lyons 45 lpi multi-liner. Because it's hard and thin, you can't cut as deep as with lino. I used a rotary tool with a rotary file cone to deepen the white spaces.

But it's still shallow, which brings me to the first lesson. You have to ink very carefully and with planning. This is my usual Caligo Safe Wash. It's doubly demanding because it seems to me that this material doesn't grab ink like lino. You have to be persistent and make may careful passes with lighter pressure to get enough ink. And you have to think your way through making as sure as possible that the brayer is always supported at both ends so it doesn't dip into the broad white areas. It's a job for a hard brayer. I used a Speedball hard rubber. I still had to clean up a little sometimes. A single mistake can be covered by artist's tape to keep it from printing. I may see about getting a 10" or 12" hard brayer that can run on rails cut from this plastic and places on either side of the plate so I don't have to be so careful of the shallows.

The upside to the plate having less attraction to ink is that the plates clean up with just running water. Didn't need soap.

But with care, both plates inked up well and printed well. The thin looking places in "Poulet!" is sheen from room lights. Both prints have good solid blacks. I transferred the cartoon with Modge Podge. The thin looking green is where I sanded to smooth burrs and such. The color is that thin. It's made for easy laser engraving for signs. Chris Pig (Black Pig Studio) put me onto this. I got the plastic from Amazon. I then found it a lot cheaper even from TEMU.

I'm still learning to use the engraving tools. So, the line shading on the Wolf Woman is crude. But I'm pleased with the wolf skull. I obviously missed a burr line between the arms and it picked up the ink and printed the line's halo.

"Poulet! Poulet!" was very much a quick experiment. It was the first time to use the 45 lpi multi-liner for shading. The clothing is okay. The faces, maybe not so much. Have to work on that. The ground at the bottom is stippled with a pointed tool, reducing the density as it goes higher to imply some shadow.

I'm having Lyons send me some more tools, mainly to do finer lines and lines that vary in width with length. And a halftone rake in 45 and 65 lpi. I wonder if 65 lpi will ink without clogging. I tried the multi-liner on the face. Kind of over-used it. Next time, I'll use it only for shade parts of the face and do the defined features with fine tooling.

So, I'm going to do both of these again, applying the lessons learned. Mainly with the Wolf Woman to use the new tools to do fine and finely controlled line shading. With "Poulet!", I want to do better on the face, although it looks better on the print than it did on the plate and work out how to better give the black roof features by showing reflections. Also, the background needs a different approach. And of course better handling of these new tools to make better lines.

I think the material has great potential. Chris Pig initially adopted it as a substitute for boxwood.

https://preview.redd.it/akehsym73lyg1.jpg?width=3551&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38a6879ed0bfed9a7298ca926a2827a9c335b75a

...with engravers plastic. Laser engraving double color ABS plastic, sign material. Saw Chris Pig (Black Pig Studio) talking about it on his YouTube channel as an alternative to wood. Got some. It's pretty neat. Thin top layer of color (your choice), white underneath. 8"x12". It does not cut with lino tools, so I'm having to learn to use gravers. Took me a whole day to get the basics.

This plate takes fine detail. It will take even outrageously fine lines, like 85 l.p.i. lines, although that's seriously thin and probably a terror to ink for relief. But at 45 l.p.i., it's workable. Because of the way it cuts, you're cutting pretty shallow, if you don't take a long time, needing some care to ink, strictly with a hard brayer. But I drug out my rotary tool with the flexible extension and used a blunted cone shaped filer tip to take it down to easier inking depth.

So far, a square graver, after I sharpened the set (unlike lino tools, these don't come sharpened), for me, was the easiest way to do fine lining. A flat graver did the donkey work of most of the cutting, after I added a heel to the graver geometry.

It took me some time to learn the tools, so some of the shading lines could be thinner and better spaced. This is the plate after carving. The green top layer is degraded because I sanded off the remaining Modge Podge used to transfer the laser image of my cartoon, which is the black, all of which is at the green surface layer. I'll probably do a little more to it. It's not clear that the ground glare from the fire is what it is. It probably needs the same on the left of the bowl and below. Kind of need that anyway to set off the black bowl. May make the circular emanations around the skull more numerous if it looks good in mockup.

The surface is hard enough to allow very precise placement of the cuts. The flat graver rolls a thin surface layer off cleanly. The power head cuts it easily with good control. I can see this subbing for lino when I want very fine lining. I'll know more when I print it. One nice thing is that this plate is translucent, so with a strong light behind it, you can see through the back something of what the print will look like.

I find very little about this as a relief plate, but it's obviously known as a hand-graving material and sold by places like Intaglio. I'll come back and show what that looks like.

All the green on this plate will print black, as will any black. I just didn't black the whole background for the transfer so I could draw cuts in black pen. So, the hair will continue black into the background and the green/black shading lines that abut green will be black running into black.

By the way, I sanded it lightly first, and it took a gel medium/PVA laser transfer perfectly using the paper and wet rub-off method. Probably try release paper next time.

https://preview.redd.it/uvlr5p7fmfxg1.jpg?width=2413&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aabd3c16d842ba77b675197715abc8750d088688

Chris also turned me onto John Farleigh, a 20th century UK woodcut artist who, among other things, illustrated for George Barnard Shaw and worked for London Transport. Been looking at some of his work, and it's moved me to get multi-line graving tools. A 45/5 and a 45/25 halftone rake. Google his images.