It was the first day of my “Introduction to Printmaking” course today. I took a few black and white photos in, some by me and some by Edward Weston. The teacher gave us an introduction to linocut, and then said to me, “I think you should use one of your own photographs. The one of the cabbage will work well.” Here it is:
So she gave me a sheet of carbon paper so I could trace it onto the lino. I was a little taken aback because tracing felt like cheating. Shouldn’t I be drawing the cabbage? Then I was comforted by two thoughts. One, I was here to learn printmaking, not drawing, so I just needed an image to practice cutting lino and printing. Two, isn’t printmaking a mechanical means of production anyway? Tracing a photo means printmaking can fall between art and photography. It can be more selective and creative than photography, but not as free as art.
It can be arty, or course. You can draw anything you want as freely as you want on the lino, but I actually got interested in the relationship that printmaking can have with photography. I’ve felt for a while that photographs are a step on a journey, not an end-point. They’re not expressive or idiosyncratic enough for me. Most of my photographs feel like they need more work to make them interesting, more human intervention so they express how I experience what’s in front of me, and not just record what’s there.
Here’s the cut lino plate:
The photo was taken after the printmaking, so the residue of blue ink is still there. The original lino plate was white. One thing I never thought about was that if you cut text or a famous place, then you have to cut the image in reverse, so it will be right way round when you print it.
We tried a few hand-printed images, but I preferred the ones done by the presses. The hand-printed ones didn’t show the lines so well.
Here are a few prints from today:
In hindsight, I don’t think the cabbage was good image to choose. The lines of the lettuce veins are interesting, but the overall shape is dull. It’s just a shabby oval. Next time I’ll choose something with a more interesting form.
It was a fantastic day, and has made me think more about how to take photography on.