How the prints are made

Linocuts are relief prints. They are so called because, to make them, part of the surface of the linoleum (or wood) is carved away to leave only the desired image standing in relief to take the ink. By contrast, in etching, the design is merely incised into the surface and the ink sits below in the resulting grooves. This is an intaglio method.

The production of these linocut relief prints combines the use of a mechanical device with a purely manual process. The key block is cut from a special linoleum. The design is then printed under pressure, in black oil-based ink on French Velin Arches (handmade rag paper) by means of a hand-operated etching press.

After an initial proofing, the edition proper is begun, each impression being pulled individually. After several days, when they are dry enough, the impressions are individually coloured by hand with artist's quality English watercolours. When the edition is complete (sub-standard impressions being discarded along the way) the linoleum blocks are defaced to prevent further use. This results in a limited edition. Each impression is then signed and numbered.

Hand-coloured relief prints have been made in Europe since the invention of printing itself. With the development of mechanical colour printing processes in the nineteenth century, however, general use of this mixed process technique declined until it was revived by artists in the early twentieth century. Modernist European artists who hand-coloured their relief prints include Kandinsky, Nolde, Kokoscha, Heckel, von Zulow and Beckmann.

The two most prominent artists responsible for its introduction to Australia during the 1920's and 30's were Thea Proctor and Margaret Preston. Preston's knowledge of Japanese art may also have influenced her use of this technique since she would have been aware of the fact that the works of the early Japanese wood-block print masters were coloured by hand before the invention of multiple-block colour printing in that country.

Because of inevitable variations in inking and pressure, each impression in an edition is slightly different from the others. The further application of watercolour enhances this individuality. Each piece becomes a painting as well as a print, with its own unique identity.

A note on 'prints'

The term 'print' is often used in the wider art market for photograhic reproductions of paintings, drawings, or original prints. These are sometimes even numbered in signed 'limited' editions. In the opinion of many, this is a fraudulent practice. Such pictures are NOT original prints in the fully authentic sense. As artefacts, they are virtually worthless despite the high prices often asked for them. By contrast, these linocut prints are designed by the artist as an original print: the block is actually cut by the artist, printed by him and hand-coloured by him. In other words, the artist himself has a direct 'hands-on' association with each print from the beginning through to the end of the entire process. These are genuine, fine art `multiples'.