linoleum prints

for this project, we were instructed to create a linoleum tile that we could then use to make prints. this concept was definetly fairly new to me, but i ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I am a writer, and some of my favorite pieces to create are those that are inspired by the stories i write. The sword in this piece was heavily inspired by my character who i have spent quite a lot of time writing recently. the Sword and gears together represent her almost programmed responses to dangerous situations in my story. The gears being still and unmoving in the image represents how stuck in her pattern of violence she really is.

i started this piece with a sketch, that i then went over in sharpie ink. I then transferred the image onto the linoleum tile that i was going to carve out. then came the step of carving the linoleum to display my image. i found this part of the process very enjoyable and relaxing. when the tile was carved, i went ahead and began printing my image onto paper. i found this to be much harder than I expected. i was expecting it to be fairly simple, but I was sorely mistaken. making the prints come out cleanly and evenly was extremely challenging.