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DESCRIPTION
Linoleum block printing is a very simple and accessible relief printing technique. It is a reductive process—material is removed in order to create the image. In this case, specialized cutters are used to gouge out portions of linoleum, very similar to woodcutting.

TIME
Varies--dependent on the number of layers in your design, amount of printmaking experience, and the number of prints you would like to make.

For a simple, one-color design, plan approximately 3-4 hours to go from your rough sketch to a finished print.

TOOLS & MATERIALS
linoleum cutters
inking plate (or other non-porous and uniformly smooth surface)
brayer
palette knife (or other equivalent tool from your kitchen)
masking tape
ruler & pencil
x-acto knife (for cutting paper, if needed)
barren (or metal spoon)
wood-mounted linoleum blocks
paper (preferably a card stock)
block printing ink (water-based; various colors)

1. Sketch your design.

Every print begins with a sketch. Take time to think about your subject matter--pick something you would enjoy working on, because it's going to take time to make it work as a linoleum block print!

Once you decide what you want your design to be, or go through a few intial sketches, you'll want to make a sketch that's proportional to the size of linoleum block you're cutting.

Keep two things in mind: the number and kind of colors you want to use, and that thin linework and small elements are difficult to cut. Make it simple!

2. Divide your design into layers (if necessary).

At this stage, I take my original sketch and using layers of tracing paper to plan out the order of colors I want to print, and the methods of cutting I want to use for each area of each block.

3. Cut one block for each layer of your design.

The most important thing to remember at this stage is that you are not only removing the areas that you do not want to print, but that your design will be reversed (or mirrored) on each linoleum block, as you see above.

This can be an arduous process! Be prepared to have linoleum shavings all over your workspace. Remember to work on a surface that you either don't care about or that you can protect easily--linoleum cutters can easily gouge wood furniture, in addition to your own fingers.

4. Prepare your paper & printing template.

Have your paper trimmed to the size you like. Then, take a single sheet of your paper and draw guidelines with a ruler to indicate where your linoleum block should fall on the paper. You will use this template to help you align your paper during the printing process.

Use masking tape to secure your paper template to your work surface, and then tape your linoleum block securely in place on the paper template (see photo at right).

5. Prep your inking plate.

Squeeze generous amount of ink onto one end of inking plate.

Spread ink evenly and thinly across plate using palette knife.

Roll the brayer gently and smoothly across the thin layer of ink, coating the brayer evenly and completely.

6. Ink your linoleum block.

Roll the brayer gently and smoothly across your linoleum block, coating it thoroughly with ink.

7. Make your print.

Align paper with template & lay it down firmly but gently.

Smooth paper with a barren or metal spoon, using a gentle circular motion.

Lift paper directly upwards & lay out to dry.

Repeat this process with each piece of paper until the first layer is finished. Allow each layer time to dry before inking a new block.

8. Clean and dry your tools!

Cleaning and drying your tools promptly with soap and water (for water-based block printing inks) immediately after finishing your work makes your life easier, and prolongs the life of your tools. Be kind to them!

So here's my example print, from start to finish:

P.S. If you like what you've read, and feel it's worthwhile, don't hesitate to throw money at me!

In my most recent additions to the Women With Icons series, you may or may not have noticed that Sofia Plagakis' portrait was a little different. It was "dramatic" or "artsy," as some of my friends called it--more so than some of the other images I've done.

Here's my secret: Sofia Plagakis' portrait was my first foray into high dynamic range imaging. I didn't intend to shoot the image that way; it happened long after-the fact.

Here's why.

For Sofia's portrait (and others I've done), I bracketed widely--capturing various exposures--because the sunset, bright sky, and dim surroundings created a very high-contrast environment. Both digital CCDs and film (especially slide film) have difficulty capturing as broad a range of value as what the eye can see, and so by bracketing I hoped that I could make up for it.

I walked away with scads of RAW files to go through. Carefully examining all the portraits (in Adobe Bridge), I chose the shot I wanted to work with out of all the possibilities, and pulled it into the Camera Raw editor.

Here came the struggle. With the single exposure I had chosen, all the adjusting of the image's brightness, contrast, histogram, and levels, couldn't result in a satisfying image.

As you can see, there wasn't enough interesting information in the sky to warrant having so much of it in the picture. And the ground was a deeply unsatisfying, flat texture. Overall, the image was very "blah."

So I tried something new. I pulled two more shots into my RAW editor--one overexposed (making the ground appear "normal"), and one underexposed (making the sky appear "normal").

The underexposed image--you can see the sky has a great deal of detail, but Sofia's face is too dark.

The overexposed image--the sky is completely blown out, but the bottom half of the image is just about right.

Each of these images on their own, of course, would be just as unsatisfying to me as the first. But here's the trick: for each image, I adjusted the settings in the RAW editor to create similar ranges of value in the areas of the images I was concerned with (sky versus ground).

Then, I took the two images and combined them into a single file, layering the file properly exposed for the sky underneath the file that was properly exposed for the ground. With a little masking, I was in business:

Of course, I'm never completely satisfied with an image until I've tweaked and blended all its parts. A few layers of isolated curve & level-adjustment, and I'm a happy camper:

Now some of you may be thinking, Jocelyn, isn't this whole "high dynamic range" imaging thing a whole buttload of digital cheating? Good question. No, in my opinion, It's not.

My reasoning goes like this: much of the photo manipulation you can achieve in Photoshop is similar to what you encounter in a wet darkroom. Terms like "dodging," "burning," and "masking," were invented in the darkroom, and you'll find them awaiting you in your tools palette. Retouching, combining two images as one, and other sophisticated tricks were also invented in the darkroom. The fact is, manipulating the supposed "reality" of an image is nothing new.

That is not to say that Photoshop doesn't offer any advantages. The number one advantage of Photoshop, in my mind, is that it is FAST.* No darkroom setup, waiting for paper to develop or for prints to wash--it's wonderful to have greater ease of experimentation. And yes, Photoshop itself can go far beyond what one can do in a wet darkroom. But I find that I rarely use more than the basic tools for editing images. Rather, I reserve those tools for illustrative and design purposes, like this image below (one of the square illustrations I did):

So there you have it, folks: a successful foray into high dynamic range imaging and Photoshop geekery.

*Notice that I didn't say "cheap," as well as "fast." The fact of the matter is that Photoshop is a very expensive program, not to mention all of the other tools required to go start-to-finish with digital photography (camera & accessories, computer, and perhaps a printer, maybe more!). In my opinion, digital photography offers a limited (but still significant) cost advantage over traditional photography, but triumphs by way of ease-of-use, rapidity, and portability. More on this in later articles.