Etched lino

Etched lino multi-print by Rhonda Nelson

I’ve seen etched lino prints, I understand the principle but I’ve not done it.  That changed last week when our print tutor introduced us to the method of ‘burning’ into the surface of lino and creating intaglio prints.

I first came across this print style at an exhibition entitled Chaos and Order where a friend, and co-member of Primrose Paper Arts, was showing her fine examples of this technique.

I was immediately drawn to the possibilities this opened up for using lino in a different way to the traditional carving into the surface using sharp tools.  It’s also a method of creating layers of incisions at different depths, thereby allowing one to print more tonal variety.

So, needless to say, this is another little nugget of information that I’ve been storing away until the time, and tuition, was available to explore it further.

I watched the demonstration in class, then a friend and I got together the following day to see what we could produce.  Using heated liquified encaustic medium – a mix of white filtered beeswax and damar resin – I painted, dribbled and blobbed wax onto my lino piece.  Obviously it dried fast as it cooled.  It was then immersed into a caustic soda/water solution while I kept an eye on how the etching process proceeded.

The solution eats away the surface of the lino, so it’s important to seal the sides and backing as the lino is left in the solution while the action takes place and the caustic soda will dissolve all the surfaces if not protected.  The solidified wax creates a resist.

Once etched and rinsed I thought it worth trying some liquid cold wax to add more resist areas.  This product is designed for creating resists for batik painting.  It’s pretty thin and takes a couple of hours to properly dry.  Then the lino went back into the caustic soda solution, now with two different wax resists.  By applying this second wax to different areas it stopped those sections from further etching, so creating different depths of etch.

I also strengthened the caustic solution.  In the close-up photo below you can see how well the beeswax/damar has stood up to the caustic soda (blue arrows indicate some areas) but where the thinner cold wax was applied the caustic soda has gradually eaten it away (orange arrows show some areas).  However, before that happened I was able to get more dimension, as it held up for a while.

So interesting.

Once fully etched the waxes were dissolved in very hot water and, using an abrasive pad, the surface of the lino was scrubbed clean.  Amazing that the lino is grey and the caustic solution is clear but scrubbing produces a brown residue.

The picture above shows an old piece of lino I found on the same day and just tried out the liquid cold wax to see if it would work.  Subtle markings, so I’m looking forward to printing it.

My other plates, one with only the beeswax/damar applied, and the second using the two different waxes are shown below with the initial proof prints.

Looking great and the cold wax layering has come through on the bottom sample.  When I’m back in the studio these will be intaglio printed in one colour with a rollover in a second.  Looking forward to it.