Lino Carving and Printing in the RV

Lino carving while traveling in an RV turned out to be a wonderfully satisfying creative project. Printing, however, was another story. Limited space, less-than-ideal inks, and not enough water for easy cleanup all presented real challenges.

For the first couple of blocks, I traced my designs onto the linoleum using carbon paper—a process that was tedious and not very accurate. After those first two, I discovered a transfer technique that worked incredibly well. I printed the design on our laser printer and glued it onto the block using Mod Podge. Once dry, I gently rubbed away the paper with a damp cloth, leaving the design perfectly transferred to the surface. It was far easier and much more accurate than tracing, especially for complicated patterns.

I really enjoyed carving both the linoleum blocks and my small rubber stamps throughout the entire month we were on the road. Carving the daily small stamp with Speedy Carve really helped refine my carving skills. Here are a few samples.

After spending so much time carefully carving the blocks, I wanted to do a few test prints. I had to make do with the supplies I had on hand, so these first prints were done outside using Golden Open Acrylic paint—the same paint I usually use for gel plate printing.

The paint didn’t dry too quickly, which was helpful, but it did require a lot of paint. I printed a few images on paper and also printed the turtle shell pattern on fabric. Those fabric prints were intended for small art quilts, which I plan to embellish with embroidery.

Before printing the next linoleum blocks, I stopped at Hobby Lobby and bought a tube of regular water-soluble block printing ink. I did some test prints, but I wasn’t happy with the results. The ink dried extremely fast, making it difficult to achieve a good print, and the finished images had a rough texture that I didn’t care for. Still, these test prints were useful—they helped me see where adjustments were needed in the blocks.

I’m really looking forward to getting home and printing proper editions using Safe Wash ink.

One additional block I carved was a Valentine design featuring my dog, Quark, bursting out of a paper heart. Using what I had available, I printed the red backgrounds on cards with the gel plate and Golden Open Acrylic paint. I then printed the heart image over the red base using black block printing ink. They turned out pretty cute, and I mailed them off to friends and family.

Happy Valentines Day

What I learned First Lino Prints

What I learned today, with my very first printing of my very first lino blocks. I've been taking an online class with AGI-Art  Linocut course.

Sampler to try different patterns and tools.

Lino is much harder than Speedy-carve carving but much more detail can be achieved.

Lino printing is very messy and time consuming. I should have cleaned off a large area of the workspace and covered it with plastic. It is challenging to be clean when handling the paper and an inked block!

I'm glad I had three different blocks to print to make it more worthwhile to get into all this mess.

Carved Block

It is challenging to get a nice coating of ink on the block and to pick out any bits of dust or little bits of carved lino, as they always show on the print.

Inked Block

Pulling a print by hand requires a lot of pressure with a barren and a big wooden spoon. It is very hard to get a perfect print, transferring all the ink, especially from the large un-carved areas. Maybe I’ll get a press someday.

The registration of the paper went pretty well for just doing single inked prints. If doing multiple prints of different colors where registration is extremely important I will need a different system. Maybe a bench hook.

I need a good place to let them dry without stacking them so right now they are covering my dining room table.

Cleaning up was a real bear. The videos in the classes always make it look so easy.  I used Cranfield Caligo, Safe Wash Ink that is an oil based ink, but cleans up with soap and water.

Still, it took a lot of soap and water and elbow grease to get the plates, the rollers, printing area etc. cleaned.

Don't use plastic palette knives. They break. One more thing I need to order.

Chatter and noise in the background of a print is both acceptable and non acceptable and totally up to the artist.

Right now, I find it adds an interesting texture and adds to the hand printed quality. So I'm not going to worry about it.

There is much ink left on the inking plate when you're done printing the larger lino prints. I used this to print a few of my Speedy-carve blocks and found that it took much less ink to ink up a Speedy-carve block than a lino block. After printing eight greeting cards, there was still quite a bit of ink on the plate, and I tried inking up a lino block again and could not get a good coating of ink for 1 final print.

Sea Stacks from the Bay of Fundy and a bear I carved on the trip in the fall.

Eventually, I hope I'll be able to make good prints for sale but right now, as I don't like waste, I'm going to give these prints away.  If you think there's value in these not so perfect prints and would like to follow my journey in this new medium, (don't worry, I'm not giving up art quilts. I have a huge project in progress right now) please sign up for my newsletter on my website and I will send you one of these prints from today for free. You pay only $3 for shipping. (While supplies last and shipping is only in the lower 48 states in the United States.)