Linoleum Prints

Artist Statement: The idea of this unit was to learn printmaking and how to make clear prints. It was required that we each make different variations of prints and create a variety of different prints to show our printmaking skills. My design was based off of a yin yang symbol because I thought it would be helpful in the way that it provides a 50/50 white to black ratio. In order to do printmaking the materials that you need are a linoleum block, ink and a roller. The lino block is used to cut out your design that you will be printing, the ink is used for rolling onto the block to embolden the design. The roller is of course used for rolling the ink itself onto the block. The processes that I needed to go through to create my prints was fairly long because first I needed to cut out the design in the block, next I needed to roll out ink onto the block, lay it down onto paper and press another piece of paper on top of it with a printmaking press. It took lots of time to get perfect prints because almost every time there would be a little splotch or two without ink that would render the print imperfect. Both the extended and multi-colored prints needed extra processing because the background needed to first be pressed with ink or it needed to be further colored on to become more than just a black design. Overall this unit was very unique because of the artistic processes that were needed to perform printmaking, although this was one of the more stressful units because of the volume of prints needed, but it was fun to see the final results.