Field Journal - Module 3

What I really enjoyed about this week's reading was the history of relief printing in Europe because I was able to learn a bit of the process of this style first hand in my printmaking class.  What I would like to talk about this week is the process of making my prints and the materials I used.

The first thing I did was created an image using pencil on paper.

Original Art

From there, I transferred the image by filling in the back of my design with a soft leaded pencil and tracing over my design onto a block of linoleum.

Linoleum

From there I used a Speedball Lino Cutter to scrape away the linoleum around my design.

Lino Cutter

Here is the final block inked for printing.

From there I placed the printing block on the bed of a printing press which presses down the paper onto the inked block.

Not the one I used but similar in design

And here is the final product.

After learning this process, i really can see what the draw must have been to early print makers.  Just the simple ability to reproduce an image that is an exact duplicate of the original in a fraction of the time it takes to make an image by hand must have been such a refreshing change of pace.