Koi Fish- 5 Step Reduction Linocut

Hello,

Over the past few weeks i've been working on what's called a reduction linocut, otherwise known as a suicide print. This is the process of cutting away from the linoleum block in layers and printing in separate stages to get a full color print.

First I drew my image directly onto the plate with a sharpie, so I can see my image more clearly when I cut.

I then began to cut away areas of the plate, that I wanted to remain white.

imprint of image on the ink roller.

The first color layer that I rolled onto my plate was yellow. I want to work light from dark so that my darker colors
overlap the lighter ones.

I then cut away areas of the plate that I want to keep yellow, and rolled my next color orange onto the plate.

I then inked up the plate to print red.

for this one I used a blue color gradient for the background, I created this by mixing a lighter and a darker blue side by side and then rolling it onto the plate. I didn't originally plan to use a color gradient, but thought it would be a fun experiment. I think the gradient adds a lot more depth to the piece.

The final layer that I printed was black for the outlines of the piece, and the small details of the fish.


This process is also known as a suicide print, because once you cut away layers you can't make any changes. It's also not possible to make more prints when you are done. I had to print the number of prints I wanted in my edition from the beginning when I printed the first layer. First I started with 15 prints, and ended up with an edition of 10. There were a few mishaps.

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I'm also offering up these prints for sale at a discounted rate until April 12th!

click here to get your limited edition print of 10.