Printmaking at Home: Creating Linocut Wrapping Paper & Gift Tags

1. Introduction & Overview: With the festive season fast approaching, we're starting to think about gifts for our friends, family, and loved ones. The way that we present those gifts can make a great difference. Creating your own handmade wrapping paper and tags is a creative way of adding something extra special to your gifts. This is Dominic from Attitude Creative. In this class, we'll be showing you how you can print your own handmade wrapping paper and tags or presents using liner and soft cut block printing sheets. This class will make an enjoyable weekend project, even if you haven't done any printmaking before and can easily be done at home altogether with the kids. At the end, you'll have a set of wonderful handmade wrapping paper and tags which you can use to wrap your presents, sell online, or at the Christmas market. I cannot wait to see what you make in this class. Enroll now, and let's create something awesome. 2. Tools & Materials: For this class, you're going to need some tools, paint or ink, and paper, but don't worry, most of what is required is inexpensive and available online or for your local art supplier. Firstly, you're going to need some lino, or softoleum, easy cut, soft-cut, or printmaking rubber sheets. For this class, I'm going to be demonstrating for soft-cut and rubbery material, however, if you've completed my linocut patterns class or have some old lino lying around, you can use this instead. Unlike lino which is made from composite hard materials, softcut block printing sheets are rubber-based, and therefore easier to cut and print. To carve your printing block, you're going to need a lino and wood carving chisel tool set. These normally come with a range of different chisels for carving textures into lino and soft wood. They're usually not very expensive and you do not need to buy expensive tools to complete this task and produce your own prints. You can also sharpen your chisels using a sharpening stone. You will need a cutting mat, this will help you protect your table when you're carving your print. Cutting mats are also fairly inexpensive and can be purchased over the internet or from your local art supplier. To print from lino, you'll need to use a tablespoon or printmaking baren. If you're using a tablespoon, makes sure that it's quite strong because you'll need to exert a lot of pressure. Softer materials for carving stamps usually do not require a lot of pressure because they have a different texture, though a printmaking baren or spoon won't hurt to have a more even coverage. To print your wrapping paper and tags, you're going to need some paint or ink. There is a range of different paints or inks that you can use depending on whether you're printing with lino or rubber-based sheets. If you're printing with rubber-based printing block, you can use ink pads, water-soluble block printing inks, or acrylic. Each of these have their own unique properties and can produce different results. Ink pad, can be used quickly print small objects. They are cheap and available at most office stationary suppliers, however, their size can be limiting and you cannot prints in a range of different colors unless you have a load of different color ink pads. On the other hand, the range of colors available is extensive and the printing process is not very messy. Water-soluble block printing inks are more expensive but produce finer prints. They come in a range of different colors, can easily be used, and dry quickly. Acrylic paints are plastic based and dry quickly, however, they leave a surface texture which may not be desirable. If you're printing with lino, you can use acrylic, oil paints, or block printing inks of any kind. Oil paints and oil-based printing inks make great prints, however, they can take a really long time to dry and can be easily smudged. You'll also need a rubber ink roller to evenly spread the paint or ink on the printing blocks before printing. Finally, to make your wrapping paper and tags, you're going to need some paper or card. For my wrapping paper, I'm using newsprint and parcel wrap. You could also try being experimental by recycling old materials like newspaper to create a quirky effect. For my name tags, I'm using some high-quality card. In any case, avoid using plastic or glossy paper because these do not absorb the paint or inks. To finish my tags, I'm going to need a ruler, craft knife, hole punch, and some twine. If you have contour scissors with a zigzag or other types of blades, you can use them to create more sophisticated or playful look for both your tags and the edge of your wrapping paper. This is everything that you will need to complete this class and make your own handmade wrapping paper and tags. Join me in the next video where I'll show you how to carve your liner or soft cut blog. 3. Making Marks: I'm almost ready to start experimenting and carving my illustrations. However, there are a couple of important things to remember. Firstly, when curving, we can create a bit of a mess. First, we're not using any inks or paints at this stage. The table where you are carving is going to get covered in thousands of chips. So use a cutting mat or a old newspaper. This will make cleaning later easier. Secondly, it is really important that you cut away from your body. Do not place your fingers in front of the blade or chisel because if you slip, you'll cut your hand. When carving your liner or soft cut, be experimental you see what marks and patterns you can cut in its surface. Here are some examples of how you can cut. Try chipping away the liner or soft cut using a fine chisel. Here my chips are all going in the same direction. You can also try chipping it away in a random manner. To do this, keep rotating the liner or soft cut while cutting. You can also create a texture by cutting parallel lines and varying the distance between the lines for effect. By cutting overlapping lines in different directions, I can create a crosshatched effect, which is really good for covering large areas. Ultimately, you can simply cut everything away. Remember that what you cut away is not going to print. So when you're planning your print, you need to think backwards. 4. Sketching & Carving: For my wrapping paper, I'm going to have a dinosaur film. Have a look at our printmaking Pinterest board for inspiration or to see what is possible using block printing techniques. There are lots of different things that you can do. For example, you could carve stampers inspired by animals or plants, or maybe you want to make a repeatful pattern, like in my previous class about Linocut patterns. You could try cutting out different shapes or combining multiple prints with different colors. The possibilities are endless. My print is going to be the plates on the back of a stegosaurus. Before starting to carve, I'm going to quickly sketch my illustration onto the soft cut. I'm using a pencil to outline where I'm going to cut. But you can also use an indelible pen. I have already thought about which areas in my illustration are going to be light and which areas are going to be dark. The background plates are going to be dark. So these spaces, I will not carve away. The foreground plates, on the other hand, are going to be light. Therefore, I'm going to carve a pattern's texture into these spaces, making them lighter as if the sun is falling on their surface. I've also thought about including a surface pattern to represent the dinosaur skin. Now I'm ready to start carving. Using a fine chisel, I'll start by working my way around the edge of my shape. You do not need to carve very deep. Anything that you remove will not be printed. So you do not need to carve great chunks out of your lino or soft cut. Cutting away from your body, slowly outline your shape. Now that I've carved my illustrations basic shape, I can start carving different patterns and textures to represent the lighter and darker areas of my image. Remember that the areas that we have carved away will be light and the areas where the surface remains will be dark. I'm going to start with carving the dinosaur's skin. Because dinosaurs are reptiles, they have quite rough skin. So I'm going to use a chaotic pattern. To do this, I'm going to chip away lots of bits of rubber on random angles, like this. Now I'm going to start carving a pattern into the foreground plates of my stegosaurus. To make this texture, I'm going to use a fine chisel. I keep on working at it until the entire space is filled with this pattern. The background plates, I'm going to leave alone so they'll print dark. There will be a light texture, but this will be created by the inconsistencies in the paper, paint, or ink and the pressure applied when printing. When I'm finished, I cut out my illustrations using heavy duty scissors. This will save material for other stampers and make printing easier. If you're carving lino, you'll probably need to use a craft knife to cut out your illustrations. Here's how my finished block looks. I have also created some other dinosaurs and Jurassic flora. Here's my complete collection. Be experimental and see what you can illustrate. Join me in the next video, where I'll show you how you can print your own wrapping paper at home without any specialist equipment. 5. Printing Wrapping Paper: I'm making my wrapping paper with newsprint, and I'm using water-soluble block printing inks. Before you can start printing, you'll need to ink up your print. To do this, apply small amount of paint or ink to a plate or glass surface and roll it with the ink roller until the paint or ink is evenly spread. Then, spread the paint or ink onto your print. Ensure that you cover the entire surface evenly, and do not use too much paint or ink because you'll cock the gaps. After inking your block, place it face down on the paper. When printing your soft cut, try not to apply too much pressure because the wrapper is soft and will spread when too much weight is applied. However, if you're printing of lino, you will need to use a tablespoon or baron to gently rub the back of your block, pushing it into the paper surface to apply the ink, like this. When ready, gently pill up your block to reveal the print below. Now I am going to fill my wrapping paper surface area, with all the different elements I have curved. I want my pattern to be fairly random, the only rule that I'm going to follow is that all of my elements must be facing upwards. Think about how much space you want to have between each of the elements. Maybe some of them will be overlapped, or printed in different color inks. Here's my finished wrapping paper. Join me in the next video, where I'll show you how to create your tags. 6. Printing Gift Tags: To print my tags, I have created this special template which can be printed on A4 paper or card, and printed on the desktop printer. The template has guides, so I can easily cut out my tags after printing. You can download the template in the class project section. Now I'm ready to print my tags. Apply the paint or ink to your block. Place your block face down on your card or paper. You can experiment with printing individual illustrations onto tags, or you can try deliberately printing across several tags. Leave your tags to dry, and when ready, you can cut them out using a sharp craft knife, ruler, and cutting mat. If you are cutting thick card, you might have to repeat the process several times. Here are my cutout name tags. If you have contour scissors, you can also use them for effect. All I need to do now is finish them by punching holes for string, so they can be attached to presence. I'm using an islet hole punch, which is specially designed to punch single holes. Here are my finished name tags. 7. Conclusion: That's it for this class. Go ahead and have fun printmaking, and make some wonderful handmade wrapping paper and name tags to wrap up your presents, sell online or at a Christmas market. Play around with different types of paper and different color inks to have more exciting outcomes. I really hope you've enjoyed this class, and cannot wait to see your wrapping paper and tags, and hear about your experience. Make sure to post your work in the Project section for this class. If you're going to share your work on Instagram, please tag attitudeskills, so we can see that too. Also, don't hesitate to follow our page in Facebook to see what we're up to, get the latest updates, send us private messages if you need to get in touch with us about something, and not to miss it if you're featured in our new student spotlight gallery. If you liked this class, please leave a review so that other people can discover it. If you have any question, leave a comment on the community board for this class, and I'll happily answer it and provide feedback. Thank you for enrolling in this class. I hope to see you in our other classes.