Let's begin by asking the question, What is a linocut?
The "simple" answer is that a linocut is a type of relief print created by applying ink to the raised surface of a carved piece of linoleum, and using pressure to transfer the inked image to paper.
It might help to think of it a bit like a rubber stamp. When you push a rubber stamp on to an ink pad, you're applying ink to the raised surface. When you press your inked stamp to a piece of paper, voila! You've created a very basic relief print.
Woodcut, wood engraving, letterpress, and linocut are all types of relief prints. Unfortunately, the word print can be confusing, because it is common for artists using other media, such as oil paint or watercolor, to produce mechanical reproductions of their original works and label them prints, or even fine art prints. One of the most common types of reproduction is the giclee, which is a high resolution ink jet print.
But a linocut is an original print. The artist creates the image by carving a piece of linoleum and inking and printing each color by hand. When creating an edition, the printmaker usually strives to create "identical" images, but because each individual print is made by hand there are always small, subtle differences. The printmaker is creating multiple originals, not reproductions or "copies."
There are several ways to create multicolor relief prints. The process I use most often is reduction printing, in which all of the colors of an image are printed from a single block in successive stages. If you have about 15 minutes, check out Reduction Linocut Process: Columbine on my Video page, which documents the 12 or so colors passes used to create a single image. If not, here's a short, simple demonstration of a four-color print.
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To create a linocut, the artist carves away any areas of the block that they do not want to print. The first carving step, therefore, is to remove any areas of the image which the artist intends to remain the color of the paper. I most often print on white paper, so in this case the first step is to carve for white.
FIRST COLOR PASS: Yellow When the first carving stage is complete, the block is inked with the first color, in this case, yellow. Because the reduction process doesn't allow me to go back and print any stage over again, I always start by printing on more sheets of paper than I ultimately want in my final edition. This allows some extras for the inevitable mistakes, or for trying new ideas. Let's imagine that in this case I print the yellow twenty times.
SECOND COLOR PASS: Red After I print all twenty sheets with the yellow, I clean off the block. Then I carve into the same block again, this time removing all the areas of the image that I want to have remain yellow. When the carving is finished I print the red right over the top of the yellow, twenty times.
THIRD COLOR PASS: Green Again I clean off the block, and this time I carve away the areas to remain red. I ink the block with the third color, green, and print over the previous colors, twenty times.
FOURTH COLOR PASS: Black Almost finished! One more round of cleaning, carving, inking and printing.
You can see that I have reduced the printable surface of the block at each stage, which gives the reduction process its name. In this example there is still some recognizable image left on the block at the final stage, but that's not often the case. Some times there are only a few tiny areas of raised linoleum remaining by the time I complete an image.
When all the prints are dry I examine them closely, discarding any that show significant differences or printing errors. Satisfactory prints are signed and numbered, and because it is impossible for me to print any more of this image, the edition is truly limited.
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