This past December, I borrowed my partners linocut tools for a little side project and found I very much enjoyed the process!
I started with this knight Snoopy idea that I had in mind for a friend's Christmas present. Sketched it out using a few references, and traced it onto some transfer paper.
I used one of the more rubbery styles of block to carve into and I found it to be pretty easy to work with as a beginner. The only issues I ran into were not carving out enough material in some spots or not cleaning off loose rubber threads from the cuts (which you will probably see in the first few prints I made). My other issue with this particular print was not thinning out my ink enough on the roller which made my prints look a little too messy for my liking, especially on the cracks in the stonework border around Snoopy. I wasn't 100% happy with my end result on this, but I think coming back to this with less ink on my roller will improve things considerably.
My foray into linocut also happened around the time I was thinking about staring this blog, so for a bonus project I sketched out some ideas for logos I could use.
This time around, I found some carving blades that were a bit deeper which helped with my messy printing. I also tried a thinner amount of ink and came out with a result I liked a lot more than the initial Snoopy prints.
I wanted a little more depth in the final result, so I experimented with adding texture after the initial print.
I pressed a kneaded eraser into surfaces I wanted to copy, lightly pressed the imprinted eraser onto an ink pad, and then transferred the ink onto the paper carefully.
I am very pleased with how this came out and happy I got to try out a new hobby. I found it super meditative working with the gouges to cut the material, and I could see myself experimenting a lot more with different texturing styles. I'll definitely be revisiting linocut and printmaking in the future!
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