Linocut Warmup
Getting Started
Have you ever sat down to work, pulling out your gouges, carving blocks, and reference images, only to stop because you don’t know where to start?
The Bob Hope Theatre in Downtown Stockton
This happened to me a lot in the beginning. I would come up with big projects, spend a lot of time planning, only to realize when it was time to carve that I had no plan at all. Or worse, I’d realize I didn’t have the technical skills to achieve the effects I wanted and had planned for on paper.
I honestly kept working like this for about 25 projects until I got to my print of the Bob Hope Theater which I started in September of 2021. This was the very first project where I implemented several textures, patterns, and gradations in the composition. I was working from a picture I had taken and, although I initially wanted to make it a color print, I knew I didn’t have the technical know-how.
I knew I didn’t want a plain white sky as the background, nor did I want it to carry chatter from accidentally inked parts of the line. I took the time to draw a composition that would feel more dramatic. The drawing looked good, but then came the hard part—how to carve those clouds and the sky?
The original block was more square-shaped and had about a 1.5-inch border of extra material. At first, I started carving like a maverick to see what worked. I was able to get some straight-ish lines, but when it came to shaping the clouds, I was stuck. I left that project to simmer for a bit and worked on something else. When I returned, I still had no strategy for shaping the clouds properly. So, I drew some clouds on the blank border and began experimenting. I tried making texture with lines, dots, and even random cuts.
I tested several gouges to see which worked best. Eventually, I ended up carving most of the extra material out and realized that at this point, the best approach was to continue with straight lines in the sky and make subtle gradations in the clouds. You can actually see this change—on the left side, where I carved first, the clouds are rougher, whereas on the right, they have a more subtle gradient and don’t end in a big black blob. I didn’t finish this project until November 18th.
These test marks on the margins helped me understand what kinds of cuts I could achieve with the tools I had and how those marks could create patterns and texture in my designs. Now, before I start any new project with an ambitious texture—like in my cat prints—I begin by testing cuts on spare pieces of lino to see how the pattern or technique will work as a whole.
At times, I just carve random little shapes into a lino as a way to test if my gouges are sharp enough, but it also works as a warm-up exercise. By doing these experiments on a spare sheet of lino, you don’t risk damaging your “good” lino block or design.
Later that year, I bought Nick Morley’s Linocut for Artists and Designers, and in that book, he shares a very similar exercise to what I had done. Instead of making random cuts here and there to achieve a certain effect, Nick suggests dividing a square piece of linoleum into a grid of nine squares and carving a different design or pattern in each one using different gouges.
This is essentially a more organized version of what I had been attempting to do. I have to admit, now when I do a carving warm-up, I divide my carving space into a grid, just as Nick suggests. If I had known about these exercises 24 prints earlier, I probably would have had an easier time and a better understanding of what shapes, patterns, and designs each tool could create.
I went ahead and created this video where I explain this process and how you can try it yourself. Let me know what you think!
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