Lino printing

Do you remember lino printing from school? I remember a somewhat epic art project in year 7 where we were required to bring in a 'favourite thing' and recreate it in a variety of different artistic mediums, from sketching it to modelling it in clay - and finally as a lino print. Having inadvertently brought in one of the most difficult things for my 11-year-old self to draw and craft (a little round tin with an image of Piglet on top - incidentally less a 'favourite thing' than a 'first to hand thing') my initial experience of lino was somewhat dampened by the terribly inferior sketch I had to base my print on. And the result was equally disappointing. Gutting.

But it needn't be like this! There are some fantastic examples of lino prints out there - and some are so incredibly intricate! There's no denying these pieces are accomplished, but I think there's equal beauty and intrigue in some of the very simple prints, too. (A quick search on etsy brings up loads of fab examples.) And - my own initial experience notwithstanding - creating something so lovely doesn't seem like it might be all that difficult (with a little bit of practice of course!)

Last Christmas I decided to give lino printing another go and create some home-made Christmas cards. I did two prints: a polar bear and a robin and found it to be an enjoyable and therapeutic experience - not to mention VERY satisfying as the results were (thankfully) about a million times more successful than my tragic little Winnie-the-Pooh pot!

Of the two prints, the robin was my favourite; here's what it looked like:

This is the tester card, where I experimented by giving the robin a little glitter breast to pimp him up a bit. The final cards were very simple: a square card in an off-white, with the robin print in the centre, decorated with a smattering of red glitter.

I'd thoroughly recommend trying out lino printing. It's good fun, isn't hugely expensive, and you don't have to be all that artistic to create lovely results! (This really informative lino printing tutorial is definitely worth checking out: http://www.lemonlight.org/weblog/2008/02/lino-printing-t.html)