Reduction printing

Last week we looked at Blockprinting in detail: Rachael's stunning graphic novel, all printed with Lino blocks, and I eventually braved unwrapping Adam Hartshorne's epic Woodcut. Both these prints were made using the reduction method: this is how it works.
1. Cut out what needs to be left white, and print the first and usually the lightest colour. Print enough for the whole edition plus some spares for mistakes.
2. Cut away what you want to keep of the first colour, and print the next colour on top of all the prints.
3. Cut away what you want to keep of this second colour, and print the third colour, and so on.

In Adam's case, he cut all the White out first (using the white paper as the first colour) and printed Yellow.
Then he cut out all he wanted to keep Yellow, and printed Red.
Finally he cut out all he wanted to keep Red, and printed Black. Each consecutive colour prints over the previous, and usually masks it, unless you use transparent medium in the ink. If you do make your colours transparent, you will gain the extra colours that are made when 2 transparent colours overlap.
Adam used the combination press to print this piece. It's not an easy press to use, but he needed the pressure of a press because he used thick white paper.



This print was made in a day by David Foord, a first year Fine Art student. It's a Linocut, printed on Japanese paper, and because the paper is so thin you can use a baren to print the block by hand. The layer of ink is much thinner and soaks into the paper, and shows overlapping layers of colour. David printed Blue first, then Brown over it, and finally Yellow on top. Yellow ink is always semi-transparent, and a light colour will usually not cover a darker one, so that's how he achieved the Green, a combination of the Yellow printed over the Blue.