A pleasing side project
Having got back into printmaking in 2014 by learning to etch, I was soon after keen to see if I could still cut and print in lino. When I learnt to lino print back in the 1970s and 80s, we used large printing presses to produce our prints. I thought – wrongly as it turns out – that you need a huge amount of equipment to produce lino prints.
You don’t. And that’s the beauty of lino printing. You can do it at home with virtually no specialist equipment. All you need are the basic tools, some lino, a roller, inks and something to help you make the ink transfer to the paper. I used the back of a wooden spoon for this, but you can also use a barren, or a small pressure press, which I have recently acquired.
I cut this cowslips lino print at the same time as doing the same theme as an etching. When you’re etching, there are times when you have to hang around, waiting for something to happen and it’s nice to have a side-project to keep you busy. This was my side project. it’s simple and was pretty quick to do.While I still prefer the etching of these cowslips I photographed in Normandy, I’m also pretty pleased with this.