r/printmaking

Original photo by Alfred Cheney Johnston of a most graceful pose by early American actress Clara Bow. I picked up an original 1937 copy Alfred's photography book "Enchanting Beauty" recently and I intend to take some high-res scans out of it to print and hang.

I'm going to rework my DIY UV exposure unit as soon as possible. Currently it shines downward through this thick, heavy glass. I use the weight of the glass in lieu of a proper vacuum frame to try and get a good seal between my plates and the positive transparency, but it's hit-or-miss, mostly miss around the edges. My idea is to flip the whole unit upside down, glue a thick piece of foam to a board, then use clamps to press the foam into the plate and transparency, hopefully mimicking the force of a vacuum while evenly applying pressure through the foam pad.

Not too disappointed in this one, but I've still got work to do.

Hope you're well ✌️

My husband and I made this from scraps, art supplies and a $5 clothespin purchase! Needed to get the prints off the table. :)

I lost my little boy cat Azriel a year ago. He died of FIP at just two-years-old and I’ll never get over it. He was the sweetest most well behaved, silly, wonderful and loving boi. I never really got a nice photo of my two cats together so I made one. Arwen (left) & Azriel (right) ♥️ (print is A6)

Slavic people have held (well, some still might) a folk belief that their souls were bound to a linden tree. A linden tree would be planted to celebrate birth of a child and under them they would hold all important village meetings and celebrations. There is something embracing about them. They are gaudy yet humble. Inviting without revealing themselves.

The print was made in five stages. I've used Caligo safe wash ink on Hereford 140gsm printmaking paper and most of the carving was done with small Michihamono U tool.

Simulated CMYK process using speedball ultra blue, process yellow, and black. And yes, this is the result of me accidentally ruining my magenta screen before I got to print it and just kinda rolling with the punches 😅

A quick test print after etching the soft ground lace wings. Final edition will also feature a chine colle species name printed with lead type. Lots of work left to do!

Hi all,

My partner and I are trying our hand at printing using Adigraf acrylic block printing medium that you can mix with acrylic paint to make a slow drying ink that should be suitable for block/lino prints.

However, our results are not quite optimal. I added two example pictures. One with a nice succesful print made with normal lino ink: sharp lines and even coverage. And the other one made using the paint/medium mixture (2 to 3 ratio) as ink: blurry lines and uneven/patchy coverage. We had poor results with both a roller, and when burnishing it by hand using the back of a spoon.

Does someone have experience with these kind of block printing media? What are we doing wrong? Or, are such media perhaps simply not really suitable?

Thanks in advance,

Sjoerd

First time posting here. Wanted to showcase my fascination and love for how you can achieve such a variety of prints in Mokuhanga despite using the same set of blocks.

Hi! So this is truly my first linocut attempt since I was like 10, but I've been trying different ways to get a monarch wing pattern onto some origami paper for a while now and this week I found my mum had some linocut supplies kicking around so I gave it a shot.

I wasn't sure this would go anywhere, so please excuse the super slapdash print quality... But now that I've made a couple test sheets and tried folding a couple butterflies, and I went to order some supplies to pursue this further but I'm running into some questions and would really appreciate some advice!

1. are all the water based inks kind of gritty feeling? It feels like I'm going to scrape bits off every time I use my nail to make a crease, which I don't love

2. I understand oil takes several days or more to dry/cure, but after that point does it stay put pretty well? Is it also fairly satin/matte? Is there any concern about bare paper developing an oily halo near inked areas?

3. what about the Lino print inks for fabric? Does anyone use those on paper? The flexibility + fact it's made to be washed makes it sound appealing for origami, but maybe I'm missing something?

4. is there something I could mix into the black ink to give it a glossy finish once dry, or should I be looking at a separate gloss coat on top?

I'd super appreciate any input! My DeSerres shopping cart is both overfull and not cohesive right now lol, I've confused myself 🫠

The artist co-op I belong to has a coffee shop and the co-founder asked me to make a design for their coffee bags. Posting now so I can't talk myself into recarving it.

im currently making these prints for an adventure time themed flea market im going to! this took around a month of work in total⚰️

I have tried etching a little deeper but still not getting very crisp prints. I am using Rives paper soaked about 30 minutes. The copper plate is 60x90mm in size. I am using Cranfield Calligo safe wash ink.

I am using tarlatan to wipe most of the ink and I have a roll of newsprint paper that I am using to wipe off the rest of the ink. It gets to a point where the ink seems to get a little cloudy so I stop wiping and print at that point.

Any thoughts on what I may be able to do to improve the print quality? Is there anything that I am doing that seems off?

I appreciate any thoughts or feedback.

Print gods - I need help - I was doing SO WELL at being neat and then this BS happens - is there anyway to fix an accidental cut? I’m using battleship grey Lino!

A friend of mine gave me the prompt "flamingo" and this is where I ended up. Speedy carve w/ water based ink, on Soho Marker paper.

My first linocut. Then i mixed with acryl paint