I managed to squeeze in printing up the linocuts this week while I was penciling out the new commission. I used plain copy paper first, since I had no idea what was going to be what for them. It has been decades since I did this and I didn’t want to waste my more expensive paper just yet.
I printed up a few of both and then one of each on the printmaking paper. I used some oil based ink I had on hand and I am not totally happy with it. It was hard to roll out with the brayer and then took forever to dry. Next time I think I’ll try the water based inks.
While I was fairly happy with the initial prints, I think I will still make a few changes. I may cut into the flowers a bit more and I wish I hadn’t put the linear cutouts at the corners. On the streetscape, I could probably do a bit more with the trees. They don’t show up very well, as is.
I decided to add some watercolors to the prints and I think it changes them quite a bit. I had enough decent prints to show both for the floral one, but only one of the architectural one turned out good enough. I like the effect of the colors over the black, but maybe that’s just me. What do you think?