ABOUT REDUCTION LINOLEUM CUT

A linoleum cut or linocut as it is sometimes called is similar to a woodcut. Both are means of making prints in which everything is cut away from the flat surface of a block except those areas that when inked and printed, articulate the components of the composition. When it is printed, the design is of course reversed from the carved relief.
Linoleum itself is a flat material pressed from a combination of cloths, gums, and wood dusts solidified into one substance with the addition of purified oil. The processed material is relatively inexpensive and in daily life it is most familiarly used as floor covering. It is softer, more supple and lighter in weight than wood, and it has no grain. Linoleum can be cut, gouged, and slashed with greater speed and with much less effort than wood, yet it also offers a firm surface upon which the finest lines may be incised.

The reduction process is a multiple color printing technique using only one piece of linoleum block. Pablo Picasso developed this method; he nicknamed it the "suicide method" because the block is destroyed as the print is created. The linoleum block is carved and inked and a print in pulled from the block. The artist returns to the same block and continues to carve away on the block, which is inked again with a different color, and same paper receives the color. This process is repeated until the image is complete.

JAMES SIENA

Lattice, 2003

Reduction Linoleum cut

Click image for artist portfolio.

Paper size: 21 1/4 x 18 5/8 inches
Image size: 14 3/4 x 12 5/8 inches
Medium: Reduction linoleum cut
Project began: September, 2002
Printer: Ruth Lingen
Publisher: Pace Editions, Inc.
Edition: 40