Making a Relief Print

Each time I shift my attention to a new medium, there are a a couple of images I revisit.   One of them has been the iris.  The relief cut iris is actually the sixth visit to this stately flower.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, this is also a good opportunity to look at the typical steps that are involved in creating a relief print.   There are some basic supplies that you need to begin:

1. Drawing paper - I prefer Strathmore mixed media 400 or 500 - 300 is OK
2. Vellum or tracing paper - the size of the drawing paper
3. Drawing pencil
4. Soft graphite pencil - I prefer 6B
5. Option - Black pen - I prefer Pentel Pocket Pen (has cartridge of black India ink) - a Flare is OK
6. Soft eraser 
7. Speedball softcut block, linoleum, linoleum block, OR wood block
8. Speedball linoleum cutting tools and blades
9. Ink (a stamp pad, like those used for rubber stamps, is fine for a draft)
10. Color  - try what you have first; markers, watercolor, paints, inks, etc. 
11. Option - masking tape or scotch tape
12. Paper you want to print on - a first draft can be pulled on a clean sheet of drawing paper
13. Option - pencil sharpener

 The first step is the creation of a drawing.  If the purpose of my drawing is to eventually do a print, I actually begin with an outline of the block material so that I am not spending a lot of time redrawing and recalculating later.  In the drawing below, you can see the pencil rectangle that represents the shape of the softcut material I plan to use. 

Iris - Steps one and two in the relief print process.  Step 1 - draw an outline of the block material.  Step 2 - make a line drawing inside the rectangular shape, of the image to be printed. 

If portions of the image extend outside of the rectangle, a decision will need to be made later to either adjust the image to fit inside the rectangle or eliminate that portion of the image on the final print.  Sometimes the effect of an image going off the edge of the paper is highly desirable. 

There are several ways to execute the transfer steps of the process.  My preferred way is to tape the thin paper on top of the sketch, then trace my image onto vellum or tracking paper with a very soft graphite pencil; I prefer a 6B.  Even a traditional #2 pencil is often too hard to result in a usable image when trying to transfer the drawing onto the block material.

Iris transfer - 6B graphite on vellum

Note on the "Iris transfer" (above) that the image of the iris is now completely contained within the borders of the rectangle.  This involved making minor adjustments to the drawn folds and lines in the petals of the iris so that it still looked natural, but fits within the space available.  I prefer to tape the vellum in place on top of the original sketch and then complete the tracing with the soft graphite.  I find that I have a crisper image to carve if I keep a pencil sharpener handy and use it often during the tracing process.  (Which means when I make a run to an art supply store, I pick up 3 or 4  lovely 6B pencils AND a rectangular, white eraser [BTW - also a cute, little, carvable substrate for mini-relief blocks.])