Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. There are four main types of printmaking includes relief, intaglio, lithography, and screen printing. The process occurs by beginning with a material, most commonly linoleum, to carve into a design. Carving the design is determined by the number of layers and values the printmaker wishes to have. What is carved away will appear blank, and whatever remains prints onto the paper. However, the more layers, the longer the process will take.
My Reduction Print
I did a reduction print through the span of my senior year second semester. I began my project in the beginning of Term 3, and I am nearly finished as we come to the end of Term 4. A reduction print is a print that is more advanced due to the additional number of layers in it. The print I created has six layers. This technique brings the perspective of more dimension in the print rather than a single solid color. To perform this project, I began by sketching out my design onto my slate of linoleum. Linoleum is a material similar to an eraser texture that is tougher and is meant for carving designs out of. After sketching my design I carved my first layer, the highlights. This step is the simplest; all that is required is to carve away any parts of the reduction print that will appear as the shade of the paper, or the lightest shade if the print is a monochromatic. I chose to carve merely the cloud detailing and the teapot highlight. While it didn't look like anything at that point, the step is crucial to build a detailed and layered reduction print. After finishing carving the linoleum, I rolled ink onto it, and pressed it against a piece of paper.
The next step, after printing various colors and shades of that layer, is to carve again. Once I completed the second carved layer, I printed it on top of each print I previously made with the original layer, careful to line the linoleum's corners exactly. This resulted in the teapot shape and the clouds to appear on the prints. After carving and reprinting over and over on top of the original prints, I was left at the halfway point with this.
Once every print, which numbered to approximately fifty, had the newest layer printed, the final layer was ready to be started. As I carved the linoleum, less and less remained on the slate due to the more layers I was creating. While the linoleum at one point looked like this,
what is remaining of the linoleum once I finished, appeared like this.