AY Honors/Block Printing/Answer Key/es

Tipografía Xilográfica
Asociación General Artes y Habilidades Manuales	Destreza: 2 Año de introducción: 1945

Requisitos

2. Escribir un párrafo sobre los principios de diseño y letras tal como se aplica para la impresión xilográfica.

The design to be printed must be carved into the block, or more specifically, the negative part of the design must be carved out. In other words, every part of the design that you wish to appear in the final product must be left intact in the block. Everything that you wish to not appear in the final product must be carved out of the block.

For multi-color prints, you will need a block for each color. All the red parts of the design are left intact, and the non-red parts are carved away. Repeat for other colors. When printing, pay close attention to the block's registration - that is, that each color block is correctly lined up. Once an inked block touches the paper, it's too late to make an adjustment.

For your initial prints, it is best to avoid highly detailed designs. Start with one color, and use large shapes. As your skills improve, you may include greater and greater detail and incorporate multiple colors.

3. Using a potato, carve a design incorporating your initials into it, and use it to print your initials on paper.

Remember to reverse the letters and to put your first initial on the right side of the potato, and your last initial on the left.

First cut the potato in half. The cut must be straight, so use a large knife for this, and cut it with one smooth motion. Your initials will be carved into the freshly cut surface, so it needs to be as flat as possible.

Using a sharp knife (a paring knife, pocket knife, X-acto knife, etc...) mark out the letters. Make vertical incisions into the potato to mark out the boundaries of the letters. Once this is done, you can move in from the side and carve off the negative spaces. For spaces inside the letters (such as the middle portion of an A or an O you will need to angle the knife down and pop out a portion of the hole. Then try it again from the other side.

Once you have all of the negative space removed, roll some ink onto your potato and press it firmly to a sheet of paper. Do not move the potato once it touches the paper, except to press it more firmly into the paper, or to lift it straight off. Any side-to-side motion will smear the print.

4. Design and print at least one greeting card.

For this, we highly recommend that you use linoleum for the printing block. As you should well know from your experience with the previous requirement, potato printing leaves a lot to be desired.

Avoid the heavy use of lettering. Letters are hard, and you can write a note onto your greeting card once you have printed it. Images of trees, flowers, and animals on the other hand do not suffer from accidental image reversal as letters do. Long strings of text are also difficult to keep aligned.

Once you have chosen a design, follow these steps:

1. Sand your piece of linoleum until it is smooth. Start with coarse grade sand paper (80 grit), follow that with finer grade (100 grit), and finally, use an even finer grade paper (120 grit).
2. Draw your design on a piece of paper, and then transfer it to the piece of linoleum. If you draw the design in pencil, you may be able to transfer it by placing it face-down on the linoleum, and then tracing over the back, being sure to use plenty of pressure and covering every line, stroke, and dot. You can also draw your design directly onto the linoleum, but you must remember to draw it in reverse!
3. Now you are ready to begin carving. Use a set of carving gouges for this, and always cut away from your hands and fingers. Do not cut too deeply. Remove all the negative space from the design, and be careful to leave the positive space intact. Once you cut it - it is gone.
4. Once the linoleum has been carved, pour a small amount of ink onto the piece of glass. Then roll the brayer over the ink. Be sure to roll it in only one direction, not back and forth. If you roll it back and forth, you will not move the ink around. Instead, roll it forward, pick it up, pull it back towards yourself, and roll it forward again.
5. Coat the linoleum with a thin layer of ink. Then coat it again. Several thin coats are better than one thick, gloppy coat.
6. Place your blank greeting card (don't fold it until after it has been printed!) face up on your work surface. Then carefully place the inked surface of the block on it without moving it from side-to-side. Apply even pressure using the brayer, rolling pin, or the back of a wooden spoon. Be careful not to move the linoleum with respect to the paper at this point!
7. Carefully lift the block from the paper and admire your results (or try again).

5. Design and print one bookplate or book cover.

Follow the procedure outlined in the previous requirement. A bookplate is a small piece of paper that is glued to the inside cover of a book to identify the owner. This obviously will require you to print some text, as that's the only way most of us write our names. A book cover should have the book's title as well as the author's name. It should be large enough to cover the outside of the book.

6. Going through the steps of designing, carving, and printing, create another original piece of work of your choice.

This could be a poster, another greeting card, another bookplate, another book cover, or whatever you would like to make. Repeating a carved pattern, while rotating it and/or changing the color can can create art work worth framing.

This requirement should be saved for last - it's your masterpiece!

References

• Wikipedia articles
  • Brayer
  • Baren
• How to resources
  • Good How to Video on block printing
  • Much easier way to block print with hobby foam.
  • Block print tutorial