Marg McArdell – Linocut Prints

All my linocuts start off in the same way:  I decide on my image, and the size I want it to be, then prepare the lino by first sanding it down lightly with damp sandpaper, then – when it’s dry – sealing the hessian edges on the back.   The sanding is to ensure the lino has no marks which would show when it is printed, and the sealing is to stop any fibres around the edges picking up ink, which would also show on the print.

Then I either draw directly onto the lino, which is called a printing plate, or I draw on paper and trace the image off onto the plate.   In this picture there is the photograph on which I based my image, my drawing, the tracing, and the plate with the tracing transferred on to it.   The next stage is the first cut.

In this case, I was making a colour reduction print.   This is where the plate is cut each time a different colour is printed.   In fact, I first printed a yellow rectangle for the window, without cutting the plate at all.   Then I cut away all that needed to stay yellow in the final print, and printed the next colour, a pale blue.  After the pale blue, I cut away even more of the plate, so that everything that had been cut away this time would remain pale blue in the final print, then printed a darker blue on top.

Everything has to be done mirror image.  This is especially important when lettering is included.   But  Picasso often signed his prints on the plate, so that when printed, his name came out back to front: I guess if you are Picasso, you are forgiven.

Colour reduction printing ensures that the edition is always limited.   Once the first cut has been made, and the first colour printed there is absolutely no going back.   So it’s prudent to make a few more prints than the final edition is intended to be in case of accidents like mis-registration, while printing.

Registration is the process of making sure each colour is printed exactly on top of the last.   There are various methods of registration:  I usually use a strong piece of card to go under the plate on the press, with small strips of card at the bottom and the side to hold the block in place, and other strips lower down to hold the paper.

The press I use is an Albion Press, around a hundred years old, but working perfectly.   The plate is laid on the registration plate on the bed of the press, the paper laid on top in its registration, and the whole thing is made into a kind of sandwich, rolled along under a heavy weight, and the weight pushed firmly down on top of it.

But it’s not that simple:  the whole process is done by hand, cutting each layer can take many hours, and each colour of ink has to dry completely before the next colour is applied.   The print in this example, which has three colours, took two weeks to make.   As the layers of ink get thicker, they take longer to dry.   Therefore, I usually try to have two or three pieces at various stages of completion.

For a print that is printed in only one colour, the whole design has to be cut on the plate, then it is inked and printed.   In theory this could mean that an edition could be unlimited, at least for as long as the plate would last, but there are hard and fast rules, and one of them is that a limited edition should be just that:  limited to the edition intended at the start.

The inks I use are vegetable oil based, which means they can be cleaned up with just water, or with soap and water.   I use BFK Rives off white paper.   Although I have a small press of my own at home, I am a member of the Belfast Print Workshop, and make most of my work there.