I'm all excited about my bluebell print but it's misbehaving. I'm printing it on my etching press which is always slightly tricky with lino, especially reduction lino as it pulls at everything as it goes through the press. I carefully registered everything using the lines of the registration bed and taped the registration clips directly to the bed as well as the grey board strips that register the block. What I hadn't realised was that the tabs AND the grey board had both moved ever so slightly during the printing of the first layer so when I looked at it my perfectly straight registration is now decidedly wonky.
I decided to reset it to the original position and keep a close eye on it as at least then all the subsequent layers will be correctly registered. What I hadn't realised was that the registration is different between to two versions of the print. So now I have to tweak the tabs for the two different backgrounds. Double DOH!!!
I've invested so much time and paper into this (there are about 36 prints on the go!) I'm hoping I can salvage something that reasonably sellable and at the least get lots for the next super seconds and learn a lot in the meantime!!
Ignoring the registration of the second print (the first is ok so far - fingers crossed!!) I'm rather pleased with them both:
The really dark purple is for the shadows, the opaque lighter green should sit on top of it nicely when I come to do the grassy foliage on the ground.
I splattered caustic soda onto the block with a toothbrush to create the dots in teh foreground and it worked rather well. It needed carful inking so as not to overload it ut once the block had been printed from a couple of times it worked well.
The main lesson I've learned is that lino definitely doesn't need to much pressure through the press. Since the tabs have to go through first I'm running each print through and then back again and that seems to be working nicely. I think playing with the press like this is really useful.
Looking forward to getting the next layer on... so long as I can sort the registration again!