r/printmaking • u/Beyekmek • 1d ago

relief/woodcut/lino First print!

Post image

I got a feel for the material during the first attempt; I have to say that the poor quality of the knife really had a significant impact. Originally, I had intended to create something more detailed, but the lack of curvature in the carving knives was incredibly frustrating, so I decided to go with an all-black design instead.
But I’m happy with the result; I’ll do some more sketching, get hold of good knives, and produce a more detailed piece.

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1

u/Impressive_Smoke_760 22h ago

This looks like it’d be a great symbol below a chapter heading in a fantasy book

1

u/Beyekmek 22h ago

It would be great actually

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u/IntheHotofTexas 21h ago

Good tools are most important. But your carving may not be so bad as it looks. It is quite over-inked, and that not only produced the white texture; it also makes excess ink get squeezed out of the inked areas to spoil the sharp edges. Easily fixed by attending to this guide to inking created by one of the mods here.

Ink Troubleshooting Guide for Relief Printing : r/printmaking

Proper inking is the most important skill, because when you design for linocut, you design in pure black and white, and unless you can ink properly, you can't really represent that design correctly with an even, dense black.

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u/Beyekmek 14h ago

I will learn it 🫡 I am sure second one going to be much more beautiful

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u/IntheHotofTexas 14h ago

Good tools make all the difference. Linocut can be carved with woodcut type knives but it more often in the West carved with linocut tools. The best in the West are Pheil of Switzerland. I would consider Flexcut and Rockler to be acceptable. Perhaps four tools will do 90% of your work. Pfeil are true lifetime tools that will go a very long time before they need sharpening and they will arrive sharp and ready. That's not necessarily true for others.

That's kind of the equation. Your design. Good tools let you carve it precisely. Good inking lets the print reflect the design as you intended. I should add that oil-based is a requirement for proper inking. Water-based dries too quickly for correct inking.