Judith Stroud at Cynon Valley Museum

Angie Lewin Print

Have just seen the Judith Stroud linocuts at Cynon Valley Museum and was very impressed. The colours of the images are much brighter than I remember from seeing them at the Junction in Swansea. The designs and use of colour is excellent and the marks are very skillfully made. For me the strongest designs are those using a very dark key block which add to their graphic qualities. Judith has chosen to leave marks made by the carving process so the viewer is in no doubt these are lino cuts. I thought the prices of £75 for an unframed print were very reasonable for work of this quality .
The main motif of this series of prints is looking through the vegetation towards distant landmarks and buildings. People feature rarely though there are a few birds and lots of umbellifers. This low level view is an approach that is a hallmark of the prints of Angie Lewin who often combines lino with woodcuts, see above. Angie Lewin keeps her images very clean so it can be difficult to see how they are made and as I have never seen one in the flesh I can't comment on their intensity of colour though I do like her designs.

Judith Stroud

Testing Relief Inks

I am in the process of finding more about the inks I use for lino prints. I have started by testing black inks
Speedball, water washable
Daler Rowney water washable
IKUA Ink and tack thickener
Caligo Safe Wash relief ink
Lawrence oil based ink
As well as
Windsor and Newton Water colour
Windsor and Newton Drawing Ink(Indian)

Used pinch press and 160g paper throughout for consistency with 2" durathene roller. Two designs used, one of cherry tree leaves for detail and one just blank to give an idea of density(coverage). Each ink was printed up to 3 times, 1st run, 2nd run(block not cleaned), 3rd run(block cleaned)

Best Results for detailed image(cherry) numbers refer to test samples
1 Speedball(1st run)
12 Daler Rowner (3rd run)
15 W&N watercolour (3rd run)
22 IKUA (2nd run)
Worst results
18 W&N watercolour, no image
19 W&N drawing ink, v pale image
11 Daler Rowney (2nd run)
20 Caligo (2nd run) too thick

Best results for plain blocks
30 Caligo (2nd run)
Speedball (3rd run)
Worst results
17 W&N watercolour, destroyed paper
4 Speedball (1st run)
23 IKUA (1st run)

Overall results
Speedball, good crisp image for finer work, difficult to get dense cover over large areas
Daler Rowney Thick ink, better when block cleaned between prints. Not dense coverage on larger areas
Watercolour Surprisingly good detail however dries almost instantly so no good for larger areas
Drawing Ink Useless
IKUA Good for detailed work with correct amount of thickener, very slow drying. Poor coverage
Caligo Dense and good coverage but too thick for finer work, needs to be thinned
Lawrence Similar to Caligo