Part one.....

After a hum-dinger of a week at work, where evening time to do pretty much anything has been limited, by the time it got to Friday evening I *needed* to do something.

Once dinner had disappeared into our bellies I settled myself in the back room and started doodling. I've been umming and ahhing over a Christmas card idea, but it wasn't floating my boat, so I chopped off a piece of Japanese vinyl about the size I fancied, picked up my pencil and freehanded onto the lino. As you can see from the slideshow I did alter the design part way through. The lettering just wasn't working. I much prefer the end design though. 

What had also arrived was my new weapon for gouging (as Dave is calling it - mum did too on our course much to Jacqui and Christine's distress ;-)) a shiny Pfeil cutter, which worked like a knife through butter. Oh it is scrummy :-) I will be purchasing a few more! Definitely worth the extra pennies.

I had a most marvellous hour or two and a bit cutting away, with a few breaks to get hubby a beer and check he hadn't nodded off on the sofa (busy week for him too). Then it was time to print...... hooray for the spoon!

It is my largest print run yet, and I used it to try a couple of different things with ink amounts etc, as well as trying printing on a bit of metallic paper, which takes a bit longer for the ink to dry on unsurprisingly. My artistic advisor ( ;-) ) prefers the print on red, although I think the design 'pops' a bit more on the green. Next step is to get some cards to put the prints on to, I'll put some images up once I've completed them. I also want to create a second design sometime this week too. I am liking the idea of another bauble, or inspired by my sister-in-law Beverley's jumper this weekend, something based on a Fair Isle pattern, and a printing method I've seen today wandering round a Yorkshire farm shop - not copying the design, just the idea of 'wrapping' an image across the card.... time to put on the thinking cap!

(I've also been playing and made a new gallery page too if you fancy a gander...)

alix 

​*muppet* (not sure it works Darren ;-))

So, my first foray into home printing!

Slowly over the week different packages have been arriving, and poor Dave has seen the back room turn from a cosy place to sit to more and more like my little hobbit hole, full of more art things. I may need to purchase another storage box!

I started #projectsnail on Thursday, copying one of my #inktober designs onto my newly purchased and very new smelling vinyl.... I chose the green side again to work on.... Japanese vinyl is two sided, green one side, blue on the other, and was recommended by Jacqui and Christine as a good surface for beginners, so I have stuck to it, although I will have to try 'proper' lino at some point. However, I digress..... #projectsnail also halted here as I had made a mistake ordering the wrong cutter..... so the snail sat until Saturday.....

Dad has also made me some superb cutting boards to fit onto the dining table I am using, and I have a bit of non-slip matting too for under my vinyl and under the cutting board. (A very handy hint picked up from LinoCutBoy's website. (Hopefully my link should work to take you to his page - very impressive stuff and lots of handy hints!)

The cutting started in earnest, well.... once I had returned from a lovely shopping trip in the morning and then spent a lovely afternoon with some friends. Amongst this the correct Speedball cutter had arrived (hooray!).... so once Dave had gone to work, thoughts turned to lino...... This time cutting was done in shorter parts - the stages were punctuated with a long telephone call and some other bits and bobs, and this made it easier on my hands (I think I am still too tense and need to relax a bit more - this improved over the course of the cutting though). My soundtrack for cutting on the Saturday evening was 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue: Humph in Wonderland' a present from a dear friend :-) Concentrating on listening and cutting on an evening was hard work, but the perfect thing to listen to :-)and then the cutting was finally finished today.

I have only bought black ink as a starter, choosing to use the same product - Daler- Rowney Block printing ink - as we used on the course as I wanted something quick drying and easy to clean up to start with as we are still working out spaces for me to work in, although I seem to have taken over the back room! Ink is *another* area I need to venture into.... little steps though and all that ;-) so this was only going to be a mono-print.

Armed with my trusty spoon and cheap roller/brayer to help print (I watched the lino cutting man very closely on Landscape Artist of the year on Tuesday), and a slightly more expensive roller all inked up I was ready....

The first print wasn't right, not enough pressure and I probably needed more ink.... through trials I found the spoon did create a better print than the brayer/roller, and as the paper I was using was just some sketchbook paper it was not too thick And I was able to see when the ink had started to take properly to the other side of the paper. Also with the added pressure I think it helped with the print quality. I finally decided to finish once I had two much crisper and darker prints. Then the oven alarm went off to let me know tea was ready, so I hastily cleared up! The lino has been washed and dried, and once I have some better quality paper I will be printing it (him/her) again.

I am already starting to think about my next print....

I've always fancied having a go at lino cutting, so when googling about on the computer one evening a few months ago, I came across this course at Birmingham Printmakers (@BhamPrintmakers on twitter). As Mum is an arty soul herself, I asked if she would like to come too as a birthday treat, and the rest as they say....

It was a fabulous day - our course tutors were Jacqui Dodds (@JacquiDoddsArt on twitter) and Christine Bradshaw (www.christine-bradshaw.com). We were very warmly welcomed and shown where to make tea - an essential part of being creative! The day seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, and I was totally shattered at the end of it from having to concentrate so much.

We learnt how to use the cutters safely (most of the time, out of the five of us on the course only mum and I left unscathed from the cutting tools!), how to make a register and also how to make our reduction lino print.

We used Japenese vinyl for our print, am I still yet to be brave enough to move into the world of proper lino!

Using the big printing press was great too - I wish I had taken a picture of it as well.

Christine and Jacqui were patient, helpful and great teachers, managing to block out most of our ongoing witterings as we talked aloud through our thought processes.... and Christine had made some great cake too - another essential element of the creative process! 

I've made a slideshow of images from the day, showing the process from the original transfer of image to the vinyl, through to the final three colour print.

I loved it so much, I came home and ordered some printing equipment!! 

​Here's to the rest of the journey.... :-)

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