Creating ‘Winter Estuary’ multiblock print

16 Mar

My Winter Estuary print is finally finished! This has been a long labour of love over the winter months and has only been possible to create because of my new studio space. It is my largest and possibly most complicated print yet, combining multiple reductions in a woodblock and a key lino block.

I started with the lino block, drawing out plants and foliage seen on winter walks on my local nature reserve of Two Tree Island. Sea Purslane, reeds, dried seedheads, berries and brambles. I then spent a really enjoyable few weeks carving the block, it started squeezed on the end of my kitchen table like all my previous prints but then moved halfway through to my new studio and my huge new desk, it felt like absolute luxury!

I then offset printed the lino block onto the woodblock. I did this by placing the lino block into my registration device (built for me by my husband especially for this print) and printed onto tracing paper held in place by Ternes Burton tabs. Keeping the tracing paper in place I removed the lino block and placed the woodblock underneath - I then transferred the ink from the tracing paper onto the woodblock using a bamboo baren.

The first layer I printed was a very pale bluey grey for the sky, with the middle of the reeds and the sea purslane leaves cut out so they would stay the white of the paper. I then carved back into the same woodblock leaving cloud marks and the water left to print next a slightly less pale bluey grey.

The next few reductions and layers were the greens of the grass and the leaves of the brambles. This was all a bit of a gamble and a bit of making it up as I went along. I originally wanted more browns and ochres in the grass and behind the foliage of the lino key block but I liked the subtlety of the sky and sea, and then didn’t want it to become a fight for attention between the wood layers and the bold lino layer so I decided to simplify it to softer and lighter greens.

It was then time for the final lino key block to print over the top and bring it all together. This was definitely the hardest bit, it took me days to carve away and clean up the lino block to print without any stray marks and it took just the right amount of ink to make the right print. I lost at least half of the prints along the way, I think I started with 12 and I ended with an edition of 6.