The Teaching of Printmaking; Lino
For the purpose of Printmaking, primary sources are much etter than secondary sources.
Lino Print has been around since the early 1900's and has had been used by many artists such as Picasso, Escher and Matisse. This is a great place to start with your students when introducing the discipline;
For the three selections above I have included a painting or a drawing as this is a good way to extract information learnt on Lino Print with your students. This is called a data sheet. You ask your students to pick the odd one out and explain their reasons for doing so.
I would begin the lesson with observational drawing from a primary source. Secondary sources are second-hand information. A representation of an object or person is just that, a representation. This should hold true for all disciplines. Where at all possible use primary sources.
Secondary sources can be used to explore technique, find inspiration and to reference. Only in extreme circumstances should it be used because of accessibility barriers.
Mark Making
Printmaking is inherently mark - making. The essence of printmaking is to create a shape that you can make a mark with. It is best to start here with your students. If time and circumstance permit plan an excursion, splitting the class into three groups. One, to collect marks and one, to collect mark making objects. The third to make marks in a designated with the materials provided. For this exercise, materials needed would be paper, charcoal, and pencils. These will be given to the group that is to collect marks and make marks in the designated space. Nothing is needed to collect the mark making instruments. Here are some examples of what our two groups collected during this exercise;
If time allows before moving on to designing let the students engage with the mark making instruments and paint or ink in an in-class setting.
Designing the print;
Negative Thinking in Positive Way.
The crucial point to get across to your students before designing your print is to reverse the positive and negative within your design. It is a good idea to introduce the students to drawing on a black sheet with white chalk to get them used to this way of visualising. The following two images are an example of this type of visualising.
For the two images above I used photographs which I had taken of me shouting at inanimate objects. I had already started to engage with the theme of existentialism through my research. Reversing the positive and negative gives a clearer understanding of what you need to carve away from the lino.
It is very important at this stage that the students understand the concept of reduction. Reduction being, the taking away of the whites within the proposed prints. It is also important to discuss the relevance of size and detail at this point. If you are working in a class of 20 or more space becomes an issue so, therefore the linocuts themselves cannot exceed a certain size, normally 12" by 12".
Hacker Over Hand;
At this point we are ready to introduce the materials and of course, health and safety.
The main materials you need for Lino Printing are the lino, yes but the four main materials pictured above for cutting and realising the print.
The first of these is the cutter. The type used in most secondary schools is pretty standard and looks like this;
It has five blades, each with a different depth. A large scoop for pure white to the a scalpel sized blade. This is used for scoring to get a 'shaded' area on the print. The rest are used to get lines of white ranging from slender to very thick.
The next of the materials is the roller. Again, these are pretty standard in every school and look like this;
The roller as well as being used for applying the ink to the lino is quite useful in pressing the page down on the print to ensure good contact.
Not always standard is the particular type of ink. The type we used in our lesson was this;
You will get good resolution with most inks but obviously the more your budget allows the higher resolution you will achieve.
The last object from our picture above is a rubbing device to ensure good contact with the print;
For our lesson we used a wooden spoon sealed off with a glue or paste to ensure smoothness and no unwanted lines.
For health and safety reasons it is imperative to use a table top device with sides on it to ensure the lino does not slip. This is what we used for our lesson. These are pretty standard in most schools and if they are not available the woodwork class would easily construct some in a short session;
The inverse L lip you see on it it has on both sides. One to make contact to the table and the other to make sure the lino does not slip.
At the point of introducing this I would make students aware of our rule; 'hacker over hand'. The lino cutter will always be facing towards wood and not the flesh. Do not cut unless the lino is making contact with the wood also.
Once you have let the students engage with the lino itself it is a good time for them to be thinking about a design they might like to work with. My thought progress visually went something a little like this;
At this point I was thinking of images that would be easier to print than an actual theme. It is important to let your students decide this process for themselves. From these original sketches I was led into a theme of existentialism.
Here is my journey from there in pictures;
Escher selection
Matisse Selection
Picasso Selection
I would begin the lesson with observational drawing from a primary source. Secondary sources are second-hand information. A representation of an object or person is just that, a representation. This should hold true for all disciplines. Where at all possible use primary sources.
Secondary sources can be used to explore technique, find inspiration and to reference. Only in extreme circumstances should it be used because of accessibility barriers.
Mark Making
Printmaking is inherently mark - making. The essence of printmaking is to create a shape that you can make a mark with. It is best to start here with your students. If time and circumstance permit plan an excursion, splitting the class into three groups. One, to collect marks and one, to collect mark making objects. The third to make marks in a designated with the materials provided. For this exercise, materials needed would be paper, charcoal, and pencils. These will be given to the group that is to collect marks and make marks in the designated space. Nothing is needed to collect the mark making instruments. Here are some examples of what our two groups collected during this exercise;
Marks made in class with Charcoal
Marks collected, Charcoal rubbings
Mark making instruments collected.
Mark making instruments 2
Designing the print;
Negative Thinking in Positive Way.
The crucial point to get across to your students before designing your print is to reverse the positive and negative within your design. It is a good idea to introduce the students to drawing on a black sheet with white chalk to get them used to this way of visualising. The following two images are an example of this type of visualising.
Image of me shouting at a tree taken from
Self Portrait photographs
Image 2 of me shouting at things.
It is very important at this stage that the students understand the concept of reduction. Reduction being, the taking away of the whites within the proposed prints. It is also important to discuss the relevance of size and detail at this point. If you are working in a class of 20 or more space becomes an issue so, therefore the linocuts themselves cannot exceed a certain size, normally 12" by 12".
Hacker Over Hand;
At this point we are ready to introduce the materials and of course, health and safety.
The first of these is the cutter. The type used in most secondary schools is pretty standard and looks like this;
It has five blades, each with a different depth. A large scoop for pure white to the a scalpel sized blade. This is used for scoring to get a 'shaded' area on the print. The rest are used to get lines of white ranging from slender to very thick.
The next of the materials is the roller. Again, these are pretty standard in every school and look like this;
The roller as well as being used for applying the ink to the lino is quite useful in pressing the page down on the print to ensure good contact.
Not always standard is the particular type of ink. The type we used in our lesson was this;
You will get good resolution with most inks but obviously the more your budget allows the higher resolution you will achieve.
The last object from our picture above is a rubbing device to ensure good contact with the print;
For our lesson we used a wooden spoon sealed off with a glue or paste to ensure smoothness and no unwanted lines.
For health and safety reasons it is imperative to use a table top device with sides on it to ensure the lino does not slip. This is what we used for our lesson. These are pretty standard in most schools and if they are not available the woodwork class would easily construct some in a short session;
The inverse L lip you see on it it has on both sides. One to make contact to the table and the other to make sure the lino does not slip.
At the point of introducing this I would make students aware of our rule; 'hacker over hand'. The lino cutter will always be facing towards wood and not the flesh. Do not cut unless the lino is making contact with the wood also.
Once you have let the students engage with the lino itself it is a good time for them to be thinking about a design they might like to work with. My thought progress visually went something a little like this;
At this point I was thinking of images that would be easier to print than an actual theme. It is important to let your students decide this process for themselves. From these original sketches I was led into a theme of existentialism.
Here is my journey from there in pictures;
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