I was very excited that I finally managed to attend a course on lithino with Mary Dalton. This is lithography on lino. The possibilities opened up seem fantastic since you can pop a lithographic layer in at any stage of a reduction linocut. It would also seem much more eco friendly to use lino than plastic as a plate since it's compostable.
First we sanded the plates. Mary recommends using wire wool (medium grade) as it doesn't clog like sandpaper (which is a problem I discovered!).Mary said the more sanding the better, it's really worth taking time to do this properly.
Then we played with the lithographic drawing materials to see what is possible. This is my test plate:
This is the key so I can remember what drawing materials I used.
We cut into the lino (after the gum as applied) to test the effect.
I also produced two further plates, one smaller (left) and one larger (A3, right). I tried to use a wide variety of materials and techniques for these. I inked up and printed a fern leaf using traditional oil based relief inks. Apparently if you cut into the lino where there is no lithographic mark a halo effect of the cut line is produced so I cut some clouds in the smaller plate and trees in the larger one to test this out. I'm treating these plates very much as test rather than as being capable of producing a finished print edition to sell.
We applied gum arabic, buffed it and then applied another layer. You can also play with the gum application since areas not gummed will print black (or whatever colour you're using) the gum both prepares the plate to receive and repel the ink. Al the plates now need to sit in a place they will receive UV light for at least 2 weeks. We have 4 weeks until the inking day of the course. I might prepare one further plate using just gum and cutting to see what effects I might be able to produce.
I'm really excited by the prospect of being able to use lithography alongside lino. I'd like to move away from caustic soda as it really isn't nice stuff, and it's very hard to fully control it, I think the lithography might offer me a wonderful way of doing this. I need to test lots of different papers when I print to see if I can really find the one that works best for me and my way of working.