Mick Buston

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Lino Cut - digital experiment

Going to explain further in a later log but think I have settled on creating a lino print.

I've ordered a kit from Amazon and it arrived today but not well enough to face opening it and figuring it out. Am itchy to get started though so had a play using Procreate on the Ipad to see if I could get my head around carving out areas to create a positive. Feels like a little bit of a head puzzle.

Found a beautiful example of a multi-colour lino cut ( I am assuming that) on Instagram by @irefaels to use as an example to rough copy. Think my final lino print for this first exercise will be at least two colours so figure this was a good way to practice before committing cuts to lino.

So in Procreate I set up a new canvas and filled a new layer with the background colour of a mid grey and then replicated cutting out sections I want to remain white by using the chalk brush set to erase.

I haven't spent too much time making sure erasing was perfect, just wanted to see if I could figure out the process. So first layer done

This would be my first lino cut layer - background colour allowing white paper to show through

Then onto the second layer. Same process, set up a new layer then filled with an orange colour then started the process of clearing the colour away, only leaving the coloured areas I want to print orange. Appreciate in real life lino cut I will have to figure out how to register the layers so that they align. Thats another job for another day.

This is how my second lino cut will look when inked up ready to apply over first layer

Repeat of process again for foreground. Full disclosure though, I forgot myself here and ended up drawing the plant leaves rather than cutting them from a background. Realised what I had done but figured for now it was ok for this experiment.

For details like this, I think I won't need to carve from a full sheet the same as the original layer. Saves both lino and time cutting. Registration I guess though will be the issue. Something to ponder. Maybe easier to spend time clearing a larger piece than struggling to register third layer.

So thats it. Time to turn all the layers on which will, hopefully, resemble how the final lino cut will also work. We'll see.

I didn't cut in a border. Will definitely do that for the lino print.

Overall happy with this as an exercise and will potentially use a digital sketch before attempting the final piece to help me understand the layers.