Francesca Whetnall Art & Crafts

Monkeys - linocut in progress

Mon, 14 May 2012 08:43:00 +0000

Here are a few shots of my latest linocut edition in progress. I'm creating this as a reduction print, which means I use just one piece of lino and cut it down after each colour before printing the next.

Snap of the print after the 1st two colours have been printed, a pale yellow and quite a bold blue:

After all the prints have had the blue printed I cut away the Lino ready to print the next colour, green. The thing to remember is that you need to cut away everything that you want to remain the previous colour, i.e blue in this case.

Here is the print with the green plate added:

After cutting away again the next colour was brown, here is a shot of the roller & glass slab where I'm preparing the ink:

And here is the Lino block ready to print the brown, you can see the card template I'm using for registration in this shot. It's got strips of card to line up the Lino with, and pen lines to mark where I should place the paper. This is how I manage to print each colour in the right place on top of the previous colour. Registration is a tricky business & there is always some slight difference in each colour - which adds to the handmade quality of the prints, and makes each one unique!

Here is the print with the brown added, looking almost finished!

Just one more colour to go, here is the Lino being cut down for the last colour:

It's always a bit scary cutting away each time, there's no going back!

At the moment I'm still waiting for the brown to dry before I can print the last layer.... watch this space.

You can also Follow me on Facebook to see all my latest work in progress.
And have a look at my Etsy store for all my available original prints.

Tiger tea time - edition of 33 linoprints

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:28:00 +0000

Yey, I've completed my first ever relief print edition!

I decided to base the print on a quick sketch I'd made using 'MS Paint' a number of years ago:

After redrawing the design I thought it might be nice to stick him in a jungle setting (I didn't realise how much work that would mean at the time!). I used 3 lino blocks for the image - one for orange, one for black and one for yellow & green (I used a reduction technique to cut into the background yellow block to create the green block). Here are a couple of images of the print in progress:

And here's the final print:

With a handful of slightly imperfect prints, I ended up with just 33 finished prints in the edition. Not too bad for a first attempt and I've learnt a lot along the way. Here are some of the things I'll be trying to remember for my next print:

Reduction should improve registration (i.e. all the colours will line up more easily if each colour is printed from the same lino block.
Cut the full picture before testing. It's much harder to see where you're cutting after it's been inked!
Use paper cut outs to mask big areas of the lino that shouldn't be printing (i.e sometimes the cut sections of lino pick up ink that you don't want to print, cover these up with clean pieces of paper before printing).
Plan carefully! - Make sure you know exactly what you need to cut away at every stage.
Wear gloves - printmaking is a very messy business but wearing gloves whilst inking up means that you should be able to keep the print edges clean. And it will cut down on repeated washing of hands.

I'm hoping to enter my little tiger into a couple of printmaking exhibitions later in the year, but until then he's available to buy online from my Etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/98769525/tiger-tea-time-signed-original-hand

Lost Star - A Titanic box set of prints & touring exhibition

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Five months ago I was excited to discover that the Red Hot Press print studios were running a group project to create a box set of prints to commemorate the loss of the Titanic, a century ago this April. Not only could I take part in a group printing project, but I'd get to keep a box set for myself!

After mulling over a few different ideas I decided on a design which attempts to combine the elegance and majesty of the titanic with some indication of the human cost. I've only done a few etchings in the past, but I thought it would be the best medium to use for my quite complex and detailed design.

Etching - the process

A waxy acid-resist, known as a ground, is applied to a metal plate, usually copper or zine but steel can also be used. There are two common types of ground: hard ground and soft ground. I used hard ground from a tube, which was spread on my zinc plate with a roller, coating it evenly and thinly. The ground was then heated to harden it.

Once hardened, I used a basic etching needle (you can use anything including a nail) to scratch into the ground, exposing the metal (but not scratching into it). I had already drawn my design out (in reverse) and a roughly traced it onto the ground as a starting point before etching. Once my design was completed I then submerged it in a solution of copper sulphate (much safer than other etching acids) which eats away at all of the exposed parts of the metal. To test the strength of the solution I had already created a test plate and tried out various etching times. My plate was exposed to the copper sulphate solution for about 9 minutes, which resulted in a good strong bite (the lines were etched deep enough so that they will hold enough ink when printed, and not too deep, so that they are too wide).

The plate was then removed from the solution and rinsed in water. The ground was removed with turpentine.

Printing

I used a piece of mount board to push ink into the etched lines of the plate. The next bit was the most time consuming - cleaning the plate with scrim and tissue, to remove all of the excess ink from the surface of the plate. This wiping leaves ink only in the incisions. Once the plate is fully inked and carefully wiped clean it's ready to be printed from. I used heavy, somerset paper which had been soaked and patted dry. The zinc plate was placed face up on the etching press bed, and the damp paper laid over the top (being careful to leave an even edge around the plate). The press blankets are then placed over the paper (usually with some newsprint between paper and blankets to prevent getting any marks on the blankets), and the print run through the press.

My final etching