Carving a Celtic Knot Linocut Print

1. Intro: Thanks for taking this Skillshare class on creating Celtic Knot Linocut Prints. This style of artists been to create, enrich with history and meaning. Celtic Knot Art is characterized by its use of intricate knots and interlace patterns. But don't let intricate designs intimidate you. Your Prints can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. In this class, we're going to cover the basics of creating overlapping patterns. You'll see that once you learn the process, making Celtic knots is not that difficult. After learning the basic process, you'll be free to continue practicing and making your designs more complex if you choose. Before watching this class, make sure you've watched my intro to Linocut Printmaking glass so that you're familiar with how to carve a block and how to print it onto paper. Your project is, of course, to create a piece of Celtic Knot Art. I'd love to see you create a linocut print. But if all you want to do is learn how to draw a Celtic knot, that's totally fine. After you create your Art, please share pictures and the class project section. I can't wait to see what you make 2. History: Before we start making our nots, Let's briefly cover some Celtic Knot history. Your form is believed to have originated in Ireland and the sixth century AD, and it quickly spread to other Celtic cultures, such as Scotland, Wales, and coronal. Celtic Knot Art is often used in religious contexts, and it can be found on objects such as manuscripts, stone crosses, and metalwork. The knots are often used to represent Christian symbols such as the Trinity or the crucifixion. Other knots are believed to have more secular meetings, such as protection, strength, or love. It can be found on objects such as jewellery, furniture, and clothing. It's also popular in the tattoo world. In fact, I have to Celtic tattoos. Celtic Knot Art is a beautiful and enduring form of Art that has been enjoyed for centuries. It's a testament to the creativity and skill of the Celtic people and it continues to be popular today. Now let's get to work on your own Celtic Knot Art 3. Materials: For your class project, you'll need graph paper, a pencil, and a pen for drawing the initial sketch of Your Celtic Knot. I like using Micron pens for inky. You'll also need an eraser for once the Image is inked. To Transfer Your Image to the Block, you'll need tracing paper to create the Print. You'll need basic Linocut Printmaking materials. First, Block, if you're a beginner or if you're quickly making a smaller Stamp, speed balls, speedy carved blocks are great. If you're making a larger or more intricate piece, I recommend Blick battleship gray linoleum blocks. You'll need cutters for carving the Block. Again for beginners, speed balls cutters will work just fine. You'll need Printmaking, ink, Hanna's surface, you can spread the income. Make sure it's water-soluble. If you're doing this at home, the cleanup will be easier than with oil-based. You should have a brayer for applying the ink to the Block. Of course, you will need paper or fabric or whatever you're pressing the image onto. A barren is good tool for transferring the Image to the final surface. But if you don't have one, a large spoon will work well. That's it. Let's get started on drawing Your Celtic gods. 4. Drawing Basics: Okay, let's start with the basics of drawing. You're not, you're gonna wanna use graph paper to keep everything symmetrical. So start by making some dots, going in a straight line, skipping one square each time I make this line, then I'm going to make another line perpendicular to that one. Okay? This is very basic. But now that I've got these two straight lines, when he's my ruler and just draw a line on either side, one square away from the dots. That's gonna give it a uniform thickness. And we're gonna do the same with the perpendicular dots. Alright, now I have this basic cross. I'm going to darken one side of where it overlaps. And now with my pen, I'm gonna go over those lines. But when I make the perpendicular one, I'm not going to draw over the line I've already done. I'll erase the dots. Now I've got this basic crisscross where one line is going over the other one. Now let's apply that to something a little bit more complex. But it's got the same principles. You're using the squares on the grid to make sure that the distance between certain points is the same and that everything is symmetrical on both sides of your design. Since we're now making curved lines instead of straight ones. All that means is the dots are going in opposite diagonal directions and then come back towards each other. They're going to cross how the designs curve where they overlap. That's all up to you. The most important thing is counting the dots and putting them in the right position so that there'll be the same on both sides of your Knot. Once you have all the dots in place, go ahead and connect them. That's going to make it easier to see where you need to thicken the lines. And it will give you a better idea of whether you've placed the dots in the right position to keep the design symmetrical. Now that we have the basic line drawn out, we're going to want to thicken it. Working with curved lines is not as straightforward as working with straight lines. So you're going to have to pay attention as you're thickening these lines to make sure that they do have equal thickness on both sides. It doesn't come out perfect. Don't worry. You have a few more steps where you can make corrections, such as when you're inking it with a pen or when you're carving it onto your Block. Now that you've thickened both sides, it's time to decide where the overlaps are going to be. Most important thing about that, as no matter where you start, you have to continue the pattern throughout the entire design. So start at any point by thickening two sides of the line, then thicken in the opposite direction for the next, you're always going to want to go over, then under, then over and under and keep repeating that. Follow the entire design all the way around. And you'll see there are only three overlaps in this one. So it's pretty simple to go over, under and over again. More overlaps you have in the design, the trickier it's going to be. So you want to pay close attention when you're creating those overlaps. Now I'm using my pen to thicken the outside lines, paying attention to where I've created overlaps and making sure I don't cross those in the wrong places. There you have a simple knot with three overlapping sections. 5. Drawing Your Celtic Knot: Now let's put what we've learned into another Celtic knot and go through the entire process, some drawing followed by carving and printing. Right now I'm starting by tracing the outline of the block I'll be using so that I know the design will be the right size. I'm also going to make margins all around so that I don't accidentally placed the design too close to the edge of the block. I'll draw a line straight down the middle so I know where the center of the design will always be. This is going to help keep it more symmetrical and it makes it easier to count squares from the center of the design. Nadh is going to be a little more complex than the last one. So I'm taking it just one section at a time. Once I'm confident that I've positioned all the dots in the right place. I'll go ahead and connect them before moving on to the next section. Now that I've finished the main portion of the not an adding another piece to it that's going to overlap the lines I've already done. You can add as many pieces as you want depending on how complex you want your design to be. Now that I've plotted all the dots and connected them, it's time to thicken the lines. I'm going to work all the way around every piece of this line trying to keep an equal distance on both sides of the connected dots. How thick you want these lines to be as completely up to you, just don't make them so thick that lines are bumping into each other and not creating the negative space needed for a successful Celtic knot. Yeah. Now I'll find my first overlap and thicken the lines on one side and then go around the entire design, keeping the over, under pattern. Once I've mapped out the overlaps and check them to make sure that the pattern is intact. I'll go over the entire design with my ink pen, making sure the overlaps stay intact. Once I've linked the entire design, it's ready to transfer to the block for carbon 6. Transferring the Image to the Block: We've gone through this process before in previous videos, but just as a refresher, here's the trick for transferring a drawing to a block before you carve it. First, put a piece of tracing paper down and use an ink pen to go over your entire design. Once you have an ink drawing on tracing paper, take a pencil and scribble over the entire drawing. Next, take your tracing block and place the tracing paper on top of it with a scribbled pencil side down. Now take your pencil and go over the design again. What you're doing here is pressing the pencil onto the Block into a mirror image. That's especially important if you're design happens to not be perfectly symmetrical. That way you don't have to draw things backwards. You can press the image onto the Block backwards so that when you carve it and print it, it will come out in the right direction. Now are knot is pressed onto the Block but not perfectly clear. And that's going to happen with softer blocks like this speed ball speedy car. So all you have to do is redraw it in a way that's clear 7. Carving the Block: Now we're ready to carve. The important thing about working in this Celtic Knot style when you're carving is to make sure you're following the overlaps very carefully. To create the illusion of dimension, cut along the lines that go over the other ones. This will make more sense once it's printed. A cutting into those underlying. We'll create more of an illusion of overlap 8. Printing Your Image: Now it's time to print. I'm going to print this one in green, so I'm using yellow and blue ink, rolling it out on a piece of plastic before I apply it to the Block. Once I feel I've mixed the two colors into the green that I want. It's ready to carefully place my paper on top of the Block and roll it out with a barren. If you don't have a barren, a spoon will be just fine. 9. Printing Additional Elements: The knot we made here was fairly small and simple, but we don't have to stop there. Cool thing about Celtic knots as they can be, as complex and intricate as you want them to be. Just to show an example of doing a little extra, Ive carved out some corner pieces. These braids are going along the side of the Block and creating some interesting overlap in the corners. And I'm going to put the previous design we made right in the middle of it. Because I've kept the elements separate. We can do different colors. So I'm going to start with green, but that's going to be for the corner braids. Now to change it up with one color that we'll contrast that green. I'm going to roll our original celtic knot in pink. Any colors you want to use on your knots as perfectly acceptable. You can keep it all the same color. You can use different ones. You can use different coloring techniques such as gradients or reduction. For ideas on different ways of adding color to your Prints. You can check out my earlier skillshare class, multicolor madness. The paper on top. Rubber the buret or spoon. Up. Here we are to color Prints 10. Wrapup: Thanks again for taking this class. I hope you've enjoyed learning how to draw and print Celtic knots. Once you get the hang of the basic process, you can use your imagination to create all kinds of Knot work. Please share your creations in the class project section and feel free to ask me any questions you might have. I'm always happy to help. You can see more of my linocut Prints and find links to all my Skillshare classes at matt reno.com. Enjoy your journey into Celtic Art.