A Different Spin II

A couple of months ago I experimented with a print that consisted of just one, square, linoleum plate printed in 4 different colors, but rotated 90 degrees each time. The print is shown on my printmaking art page. I thought the result was so interesting that I had to do another one and this one became even more interesting! In an outburst of creativity, I called this second experiment "A different spin #2".



There are a couple of things that are very different about this print. First of all I planned a lot more, and drew a whole series of sketches. Also I wanted to have two very different types of cutting on the print in different quadrants: 2 quadrants with more rounded forms, the other two with very line-like forms, with exact angles and lines. This part was quite difficult to cut because I also wanted exact 90deg angles for all the corners of the lines. That was a lot of work (I had to precut all the lines with a straight blade and then carefully lift out the linoleum. Normally I do that only for a few special spots on a plate, not for a majority of all lines. But the results show that it was worth the effort.

This one is also done with only one plate, however it's a 3 color print. Which leaves 2 possibilities for the last plate, right? As I couldn't decide which one I liked better, I just printed a few of each. And then I made a few prints on different color paper (3 different paper colors) which means there are really 8 variants of this print depending on paper color and the orientation of the last plate. The print is numbered as EV (Edition Variee) for that reason.

Here are a few photos of some of the variants. Note the I used exactly the same inks for each of the prints and it is really quite amazing just how different the prints look - the various paper colors make a huge difference and the orientation of the last plate does as well... By the way: this is probably the last print I printed on my old, small press. All the new prints from now on will come from the new press I described in the previous post...