Linoleum Print

I wasn’t sure, at first, what I would do for this project. I cannot remember how, but the idea of doing a flower popped into my mind either through suggestion or my own thought. At first, my sketch was an attempt at realism, I wanted it to be at least mostly realistic and to resemble the flower that I chose (Lily of the Valley). At first it went okay, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with my design, as it was a struggle to get anything other than the main flower to look at least semi-realistic. I ended up turning it into a style I enjoyed, and personifying the plant as well as making it cartoony. The only specific idea that I had going into this piece was the idea of doing a flower. I also knew that I wanted to make the negative space, not coated in ink, the outline of the flower/the design. There was no specific theme or idea, rather this was more experimentation so that I could find a style and an idea that I was comfortable with. I also wanted a design that would transfer well to the print, because something super detailed might be difficult to make into a print. In the end I was at least semi satisfied with the design of the print, although it was difficult to get the ink to work in the way that I desired it to.

This project began with a sketch, which I simply did on drawing paper with pencil. This was the stage where I was figuring out what I wanted to do with my project, and the stage in which I altered my initial design/idea. For this I just used pencil, and from this stage went on to transfer my design onto the linoleum. I traced my design with a soft pencil, about a 4b, and placed my design on the block. From this stage, I used a soft pencil to push the design onto the block. From this stage I traced the design with sharpie, this was so the pencil would not smudge and my design would stay there when I got to the stage of carving. When I arrived at the stage of carving, I stuck with only one blade (as it was all that I needed) and tried to manipulate the linoleum in a way that would allow me to have the print that I had envisioned. For larger/long lines, I traced AROUND them, but for smaller details such as eyes or eyebrows I traced right onto the lines. In the end, the actual design was to my satisfaction, though the actual ink part was difficult. It took me a while to even get a half decent full print, and in the end I still believe that I could have done better and that there was room to grow.

I revised in many places throughout this project. The first was the initial sketch where I added more details, and the second was at the carving stage where I decided to scrap some details (falling petals) because I knew that it simply would not look good with my overall piece. In the end I am happy with my revisions, as the end product at least mostly resembles what I desired. The experimenting was really done in the sketching phase, where I experimented before deciding on a final product and a more cartoony style rather than the realistic one I had possibly initially imagined. The research I did was simply researching what the flower I wanted to do LOOKED like (although I already knew) and looking up a specific reference image to go off of for my piece in order to get the major lines down and add details further on. This was the stage where I knew that taking a more cartoon approach to this would be the smarter idea for me. I am happy with my decision, as I know that I would have gotten very frustrated when attempting realism (if I had attempted realism) for this piece.