Printmaking and related techniques

[FrostPumpkin]

Hey guys ! For the last few years I dropped out pixel art and got more interested in traditionnal art, that's how I discovered linocut. Linocut is a way of creating and printing images by carving a block of linoleum and use it as a tampon to print your image on a piece of paper.
You may ask "Why talk about this on a pixel art forum ?". Because IT IS Low spec ! Maybe not the way you define it but this media does have technical restrisctions and the biggest is : COLOR LIMITATIONS YAY !
Yes, in linocut you have to deal with limited color count, just as in pixel art.

Here are some of my stuff :

2 colors


3 colors


4 colors


In the last set of print, I worked with 4 colors (so 4 carved lino blocks) but as you can see, there are more than 4 colors due to the superposition of some colors and That I found interesting ! Playing with restrictions, mess with them, pass through them. For this you'll require ingenuousity as you do in pixel art.

I hope you liked it and maybe you want to give it a try ! That would make me glad. And by the way if some of you have already done some linocut I'd be very happy to see them posted on this thread !

See you guys !

[Cure]

Good to see another printmaker 'round here. I see you are as skilled at relief printing as you are at pixel art, these are really some great prints.

You said post our stuff, so here are a few prints:

These are simple 1-run linocuts I made just to keep my print hand strong:
 

This pair isn't linoleum, the plates are actually cheap PVC foamboard called sintra, good for large relief.
I think these are my largest prints, each is 3 ft x 3 ft. I also tea-stained the paper before printing:


And this last relief print is carved from plexiglass using a dremel. 1-run, rainbow-rolled to get some color in it:


I've also wondered if I gravitated toward pixel art and printmaking for related reasons, as working with limitations is important in both.

[HardcoreBadger]

guys your works are awesome, seriously

even if i didn't understand a word on how you do that cause i didn't bother reading and many of the words employed i never heard of (i'm french)  I like these

[crozier]

Oooh, you guys are pretty good! Everything is really sweet.
4 lino blocks  How long did that take you, FrostPumpkin?
I have been doing printmaking the last few weeks at our school, so I'll post my stuff Monday (1 linocut design, 1 watercolor monotype, and a etching wip). 

[FrostPumpkin]

Cure : Thanks for the nice words, great stuff by the way ! I don't know why but i did expect you to post some of these. they are great, especially the skull thing and the 2 big prints you made, they are amazing ! Have you considered doing some multiple layers/multiple colors prints ? I rainbow rolled a bit on some of my print to add a bit of hue shifting but I found this technique quite annoying to apply on multiple following prints.

I like the dremel technique on plexiglass, it's very unexpected ! I might try something similiar quite soon cause my mom has a dentist machine with multiple shaped tools, you know the machine they use the make holes in your teeth. Quite useful for precision work I think but I prefere traditionnal lino carving, it hads the very special lino/wood carving render and randomness (But I guess plexiglass does not leave you that choice).
I also like not fully inking my blocks so the paper gives some texture to the print.

Considering relationship between relief printing and pixel art, I like to believe that it's not only about color limitations (mostly thought). I think they have some kind of related vibe, they both are really special technique and process but pixel art really influence my lino stuff art, as well as colors but I guess that's because pixelart and it's community taught me almost everything I know about colors.
I might try some tiles based works ! Could suit really well to that technique !

HardcoreBadger : Thank you ! Lucky I'm french too so I can translate haha
Donc la linogravure est une technique qui consiste à creuser un block de linoleum (a peu pres la meme matière utilisée pour couvrir les sols) et ensuite de s'en servir comme d'un tampon pour transferer l'image creusée sur la feuille (où les endroits de la plaque qui seront creusés resteront blancs et le reste prendra la couleur)

Crozier : Hi ! thanks
Yeah 4 linoblocks ! It took me about 8 hours of carving and 3 hours printing (3 different set of colors and 5 print for each so 15 prints in total)
Yes please post them ! I'm very curious about them, I not familiar at all with the 2 techniques you last quoted

[HardcoreBadger]

o_0 this way of making art looks like a pain but it's great

why using this ? do you find advantages over using a tablet for example ? cause those could be done with photoshop or smthg like that

is it easier for you ??


et aussi tu graves le dessin en entier et après tu le tamponne c'est ça ? ou tu fais des morceaux de dessin que tu assembles ? enfin tout doit être possible mais bon

[Cure]

A tablet and photoshop cannot produce a physical object. You cannot sell a limited edition of .png files, or hang them in a gallery. And photoshop cannot reproduce all of the 'happy accidents' that come with printmaking. Completely different beasts.

@FrostPumpkin: I've done multi-colored prints (using the color-reduction method, rather than multiple plates/blocks), but they were done a few years ago and were only so-so.

[FrostPumpkin]

Hardcorebadger : As cure said these are 2 completely different techniques, and it might seem to require a lot of efforts (and it does actually !) but you'd put as much effort trying to figure out how to get the same render in photoshop and it would be a vague aproximative lookalike render. And it creates an object, a real touchable object made of matter, not a computer file.
Also, this technique is between art and crafting and it's a whole different process, it's not really comparable to tablet painting.
(needs any translation ?)

Cure : They're great ! My favorite is the Salad one, those colors are retro !
Have not tried the color-reduction method, seems quite hard to manage and my ink is like 70% opaque so not really appropriate (or maybe it can be something to play with). And I like the security of having my blocks ready for some more prints if needed (I'm planning on selling them). But I'll sure try this !
Check picasso's linocuts, most of them are done using colore reduction method

[Charlieton]

So, this is kind of like what Gustave Doré did a lot of? First time I opened up a book with Doré-illustrations I had never seen anything like it. I read that they were wood cuts, so I figured he would have carved a plate of wood and used different reliefs to vary the intensiveness of the impressions. It's the same here, but with linoleum?
- reading about it on wikipedia cleared it up for me 

giant image of a carving by Doré

I really like FrostPumpkins 4 colour prints, and Cures large prints are very impressive!

ot: couldn't there be a traditional art subsection on Pixelation, too? Even given the restrictions of the linocut, it doesn't seem equivalent with low-spec to me, given it's still a physical medium. This would fit in on the OT-Creativity thread, I guess, but with just one thread it's easy for subjects like this to get overshadowed and pass by unnoticed. Or would such a subsection count as deviating too much from this forums main focus? I realize these questions probably only can be answered by the admins, though. Excuse me for bringing it up here.

Anyway, I've got to try this, sometime!

[Cure]

Doré is mainly known for engravings, which I think is how the image you posted is made.
Engraving is intaglio (fine lines that hold ink), whereas relief is carving out what won't hold ink (the color of the paper/transparency)