I learnt a new skill: Exploring Lino

Like many people I took the lock down to learn a new skill, the skills I choice to learn was lino cutting/printing.

Before now I do not think that I had every done lino before, even within my art education I only have vague memories of creating etchings (not for me), but no recollection of lino.

I am not sure what drew me to this new skill set, however I think it probably had something to do with my near-obsession with creating collections and repeats and thought that this would be a good way to do that. It also removes any fears I have about my love of repeats and repeats not being originals. As with the print, while they come from the same stamp, each outcome is original and can vary in so many ways aesthetically. 

The process also feeds into the DIY nature of my practice, as I can make something from my hands to use within my practice. Even the inking up and printing allow me to be fully involved. 

I pick some tips up from attendees to an Online Creative Practitioner Support Programme session before I go started. Other creatives suggested that I warmed up the lino before I got started and suggested that I try to keep all my fingers in tact too. 

I decided to use images and text from The Road Sign Collection within my lino prints as a way of developing that body of work and looking at it in a new way. Until now it had been a digital project. 

The trickiest part of the process has been remembering to flip the images, other than that I found using the cutting tool quite easy to pick up and use without any training. My one tip would be to ensure that you use a marker on the lino once you are sure you have the image correct before you start cutting, as this will not rub off while you are working.

As I continued to play with the lino I decided to also create stamps of my font, ACcomplete4, initially this was a way to use up small off cuts of the lino. However, like with the road signs this will allow me to explore the font away from the computer. 

The aesthetic of these is a little more ransom-note-like than I had hoped, given that the initial intention behind the font was to create a type face which felt friendly and approachable.