Creating “White Horse” linocut
Original Print – Linocut on Paper
This Yorkshire landmark (Kilburn White Horse) has been cut into a hillside at the lower edge of the North York Moors, and into the lino used to make this print.
It's a rework of an early Kilburn Horse print I made while learning printmaking. It was one of the first prints I entered into a juried open exhibition, where it sold.
In the story of my development as a printmaker, that early print was key to encouraging me forward. It wasn't as colourful as this one, and that's what prompted me to rework it.
A relief print
I'm calling 'White Horse' a 'relief print'. This is a term used for some original prints such as lino. It refers to the way the coloured ink gets on to the paper.
Carving into a material (such as lino or wood) creates a design that stands out from a surface.
There's high relief, where the difference in levels is big (though we're still talking a few millimetres at most), and there's low relief when the difference is tiny. Lino print is a high relief printmaking process.
Using a roller to apply coloured ink, means only the top most areas of the relief get the ink. This is how the design is transferred to the paper, and exactly how linocuts work.
Printing “White Horse”
I mixed three distinct colours, though this print was only put through the printing press twice. The first pass put down the pale blue and dark sienna. I'd individually inked areas of the lino to achieve this.
Once the first printing had dried, a second pass through the press for the dark blue was made. There's an overlap of the pale blue and dark blue that creates a subtle fourth tone (not that clear in the illustration).
I used two blocks of lino, though I could in hindsight have used only one. I was still new to printmaking when I made this print. Another term used for this kind of print is 'block print' because each piece of lino is a block of material.