As part of my research and experimentation with print making, I wanted to try creating a reduction lino print.

For my first attempt at a reduction lino print, I wanted to create something simple and fairly small but interesting enough that it would be an interesting print by itself. 

I love cherry blossoms and felt they would tick all my boxes.

My first attempt at printing the background wasn't the bold saturation I was aiming for. I didn't roll the ink thick enough so it resulted in a patchy print. This is definitely a useful experiment and I should look into experimenting further with ink saturation on block color as I love the result. 

Varied saturation on printing could be fantastic for create large areas of visual material which I can use to create collage pieces.

I was tempted at this stage to leave this print as it has a simplistic beauty to it ehich I feel is essential to this project's success. Using only 2 colors and simple shapes, I had created something bold and recognisable. 

I don't think that this look would work for the main subject of a print, but would be perfect for background elements.

When printing the linework onto my print, I accidently placed the printing plate on upside down and created a print which didn't register. I really enjoyed this outcome and is definitely something I want to experiment with further as I feel that the misregistered look creates chaos and excitement which would be perfect for a design like a dragon. 

In future I wouldn't like the print to be upside down, but having linework that looks purposefully misregistered could give energy and excitement to the illustration.

After finishing my reduction lino-print, the only element I could reproduce was the linework. I chose to create some copies of my linework so I could test a couple new media.

I also created a couple ghost prints from the ink roller after printing the linework. They came out really cool and ghost printing could be another technique for me to create interesting texture within block areas. I should do another experiment with some simple mark making and see what textures I can create.

Left: Copic Alcohol Markers   Right: Watercolour

I really enjoyed the bold colour and smooth application of the Copic markers, although, I don't feel that this small design brought out the strengths of Copic markers. I enjoyed this test but I feel like they won't work for what I'm aiming to create.

Due to the cheap lino ink I used being water based, while using watercolour, the ink smudged and blurred into the watercolour. This wasn't a fair test of watercolours potential and I should definitely revisit it. Watercolour is definitely more useful for creating softer work with gradients unless I found some bolder colours and improved my application.