Skip to main content

Kitchen Printmaking

We drove straight from Interlochen last Friday to our weekend house near the Mississippi. There's no TV, phone or wi-fi here (actually, we don't have TV in Chicago, either). All we have to do is tidy up a few dead insects and cobwebs here and there, tidy up after the cats, who have been looked after here while we were gone -- and then we can spend a few days doing a bit of R & R before the rest of a busy summer gets into gear.

For most of the weekend, that just meant sleeping, walking around the tiny downtown area (Mt Carroll, pop. 1500), cooking a meal for some friends on Sunday night. Patty is continuing to work on her novel, while also trying to fix up more readings to tie in with the release of her short story collection in September. I commandeered the kitchen for a day to do another reduction linocut:


It's a commissioned image of the Mallory-Towsley building at Interlochen, home of the Center for the Creative Arts. I did a five colour reduction linocut in four stages:



Here's what the block looked like inked up with the final colour:


This technique works best by hand-printing, so it's easy enough to do this on the kitchen table. The only things to watch out for are: a) the cats, who might jump up and take some inky paws into the rest of the house; b) the kitchen table, which is part of a classic 1950s American kitchen set. Getting ink on that would incur the famous Wrath of Patty -- and believe me, you don't want to see that too often ...


 Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Popular posts from this blog

Restoring my Printing Press

I've just finished restoring and assembling my large etching press -- a six week process involving lots of rust removal, scrubbing with steel wool, and repainting. Here is a photo of the same kind of press from the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative: And here is a short YouTube video of me testing the press, making sure the motor still works after nearly seven years of lying in storage:

Brancusi in Plastic

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau is showing these columns made from recycled plastic cartons and lids in the window of the Columbia College bookstore on Michigan Avenue. They are a playful homage to Brancusi's "Endless Columns", with a serious environmental message for our times: Image copyright Inhabitat.com and Mary Ellen Croteau Mary Ellen also runs a wonderful experimental art gallery in a window space in west Chicago, called Art on Armitage . I will be exhibiting a mixed media piece there during August 2012.

How to etch a linoleum block

Linoleum as a material for printmaking has been used for nearly a hundred years now. Normally, you cut an image out using special gouges similar to woodcut tools, cutting away the lino around the image you want to print. This is called relief printmaking, because if you look at the block from the side, the material that remains stands up in relief from the backing material. You then roll ink with a brayer over the surface of the block, place paper over it, and either print by hand or run it through a press. You can do complex things this way (for example, reduction linocuts), but the beauty of the process is that it is quick, simple, and direct. Incised lino block, from me.redith.com Etched lino block, from Steve Edwards A few years ago, I saw some prints that were classified as coming from etched linoleum blocks, and I loved the textures I saw in them. In the last few months, I've been trying to use this technique in my own studio, learning about it as one does these d