Carving Linoleum Continues

I’m still very much in the try-things-and-see-what-happens stage. I can sense a few mysteries lurking that are key to doing what I want.

For carving, I have switched from the soft pink rubber stuff to the hard battleship gray linoleum. It is much harder to cut but makes a world of difference in detail and precision. It’s also more satisfying. I also bought some larger material. Having some more room really helps if you’re doing details. I keep looking at the giant prints people make- like this lobster. They tempt me.

I’ve also started coloring the carving material before I draw on it. That really does help. I’ve just been using a blue alcohol-based marker we had lying around. It’s a bit dark. I did learn the hard way that it will smear sharpie ink if you try to color it after you make your drawing.

In other equipment news, my kind mother sent me some more ink colors yesterday and some thick paper for printing. So who knows what that might lead to. My goal in starting this was to make some interesting stuff for her. I just have to get my skill up.

In the photo above you can see me trying to get some water-like patterns for the lobster. Neither style worked. I think swirly stuff might if I can get it thin enough but it probably needs two colors. I’m still figuring out how the ink will look when it’s printed. I lost the trail there and may try to rescue it by cutting out all the background. It is also on the smaller material so I may just trash it.

I printed the cartoon birds from the earlier post. They are mediocre. Again, I might go back and take out more so there’s not so much black. I keep thinking I’m going to really plan something out and follow very detailed drawings but I tend to free style once I get carving.

The building/tower is getting closer to decent. I botched the top of the tower’s perspective but with some cleanup and more detail work, I like the rest of it. It was based on this minimalist pen drawing. I’m definitely going to try some more of these. I like trying to move from one media format to another.

Here is an example of the larger material and the blue coloring. The giant rough gouges are when I thought I was going to make the ears all white in parts. That was a mistake. I blame impatience. I’m getting better at taking a break before I do something dumb that I can’t undo now. I actually like the actual block carving better than the print. I might try some in wood that way and focus on the block itself. It’d be cool to see how repeated inking with different colors might build up in interesting layers.

Here you can see the drawing I was basing things on. It may have been AI. My kids think so. It is very, very regular and flowy. My version, not so much. A bit more asymmetry than desired but that’s humans for you. Again, I meant to plan this out better but just sketched it with a pencil and went over it with a Sharpie. I did remove the hat and made the tusks differently. I went back with a black pen later and improved the look of the print where the giant gouges where in the ears.

Now we revisit sardines. This being a much more detailed inspiration.¹ I felt like I made some skill progress here. I struggle to find a style I want to follow in photography. I think I’ll have the same problem here. I want some mix of realism and detail and then I go abstract. Maybe that’s a style?

I made one fairly major error in this carving that resulted in way too harsh of a white line on one of the fish but I just took the ink roller and ran the edge down it. Presto. Erased line. I imagine that experienced people do stuff like this and do some touch ups with pens or brushes but, like photography, I’d prefer to get it right from the beginning. To get closer to that source drawing, I think I either needed a bigger piece of linoleum or smaller gouges. I just couldn’t get the detail in the fish eyes. The scales too are a bit of a mystery to me. I kind of did the opposite of the source and my version is definitely more abstract. It kind of works but it’s very different. Again, smaller gouges or bigger linoleum would have helped. I may also need magnifying glasses. If you can imagine, I’m doing this sitting on a couch, hunched over an end table so my workspace could use some improvement too.

Anyway, this remains entertaining. I keep finding more people who do even better things in entirely new ways. Just check out the example below. I’ve tried to draw that with a fat marker several times and remain amazed with how well they use those lines. I think this is also improving my pen/ink drawing as was messing with that at various points too. I like how various art forms impact other art forms and the general perception of the world. I like to look at things and think how I’d carve that. I loop through old photos and think what I might carve. I look at photos I’m about to take through a layered lens of all this stuff. I’m now thinking about wood cuts, lithographs, engravings, and stencils. Words I knew before but didn’t have in my brain in the same way I do now.

A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. That full saying rings true to me. Late stage capitalism wants to lop it off and make you dependent. Learn all the stuff. Do as many things as you can. Avoid repetitive stress syndrome in your brain, body, and soul.

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