‘Wildlife artist of the Year’ submission 1 of 2: Hippo & calf

Hippo & calf © Peter Gander

The inked hippos await the roller press

The whole background is ready for inking

Adding shellac to prevent ink soak-up

The lino is registered onto a paper template

A pencil rubbing checks the linework (in reverse)

Cutting the image out with a craft knife

Carving the lino (detail)

I have just finished and entered two very different prints for the David Shepherd ‘Wildlife Artist of the Year’ open art competition. Both, however, are combination prints, using the same techniques as the previous post; King Crow. That is, using both Japanese vinyl and cardboard printmaking in the same print. Both use the vinyl for the main images and cardboard for the more textured backgrounds. Hippo & calf utilises the black paper to full effect in that the paper becomes the linework. In other words, the cut lines, rather than the areas conventionally left to print by cutting away all BUT the lines, are revealed by the background paper. So what looks like a 3-colour linoprint (for the hippo itself) is actually a single (graduated) print on black paper. The ink was mixed on the roller in this case. The carboard background was printed seperately, flecks of white paint added by hand too. Every print is unique as each one is coloured up seperately and is effectively a bit of a mixture of collagraph and monoprint. Oil-based inks on 200gsm black card.