How to carve shapes - A linocut tutorial by Linocutboy

hello in this video I'm going to show you how to cut around various shapes using different tools so I've got a small u gouge and large you gouged a hanky toe which is a knife and a large V I'm going to cut three squares to start with and then I'm going to show you how to cut these smaller shapes so start with but I'm going to cut around the edge of this square and then inside so when I print this if I use black ink I'll get a black outline to square so I normally follow the outline first now we're not doing very accurate work I often use this finger as a sort of guide when I'm cutting this is the small one millimeter you I'm using my file garages done another video about all the different tools that I use now these u gouges the fire ones very nice for doing straight lines that just basically want to go in a straight line and they will cut a very even width of long so even if your drawings a bit wonky like this one you can sort of straighten that up and neaten it up as you carve so I've gone around the outside I'm now the tricky bit is doing the middle because when you get towards the corner you don't want to overshoot you don't want to take out a chunk of that line so you just start right in the corner you can go around to the edge and just slow right down and when you get there just take your tool away and brush away the little bit of lino now you can do it so I'm using traditional gray line now I've colored it in blue so you can see I'm doing a bit better so now I'm coming into this corner in the same way brush it away and you can't do that with other of that materials like vinyl they don't they're not brittle the nice thing about the traditional I know one of the nice things is that it is brittle sit these little bits just break off brush away now this is how I used to work using the small U and then I would take a larger tool to clear away the middle bit and again you can just go and you enough to go right up to the edge now you go up to almost to the edge and break it off it doesn't really matter if it's a bit messy inside as long as you've gotten deep enough again I'm slowing right down to that edge and if necessary you can go back with a small tool and just tidy up those edges again now that's how I used to do it and it's a good way if you're starting out because this little 1 millimeter you gauge is very nice and easy to control but what I found was that the little bits that got left behind would print and you get a little echo line there which can be quite nice but if you want a clean clean area in the middle it can be a bit annoying so nowadays I tend to carve as much as I can with the bigger tools so I'm going to carve attempt to carve this one out with a large u so this is a 5 millimeter you so again I'm going to go around the edge yeah and I'm just following the edge with one side of the tool now you'll find with this large tool that line does vary a little bit more in terms of the width of the line and you want how deep your carving the deeper you carve the wider the line is going to be and I've got bad I'm working on a non-slip mat here this just really helps keep the block in one place while you're carving so I've gone around the outside bit wide on this one so I'm going to go back in and just take a bit more of that now I'm going to do the inside edge in exactly the same way as that one but I know that this tool is quite wide so at the corner that I'm starting off in I'm not gonna get a nice square there to start with but I'm not worried about that yet so I'm following that left-hand edge there and this time I'm just going to stop at the line take the tool right I'm not going to break it off and then turn the block I'm going to come at it from this side and that will slice through the bit you've just cut off so you'll end up with a nice 90-degree angle there and then this bit where it's a bit rounded you can come back from the opposite at the side square that off and the same and you just keep going around then you put all the corners done so square this one off this is possibly a bit easier with a medium three millimeter tool I thought I'd show you this just to show you what's possible with a larger tool and the advantage of that is it's quicker and also easier to clear those bits and you're not going to get any of these little echo lines inside okay so that's the second technique the last technique I'm going to show you is with the knife that hang Ito now I'm not an expert in this this is a traditional Japanese technique if you want to learn it properly have to go to Japan study for eight years but there's lots of YouTube videos you look up Japanese woodblock cutting I'll hang it on how to use a handy tool and you'll get a more professional instruction but I'm going to show you the way I do it so this is a right-handed and Guiteau it's worth knowing that there's right and left handed once you're left-handed make sure you buy a left-handed tool this one's from a fairly affordable set my chai put a link to in the description for the video and you can spend a lot more and get a really professional one they come in different sizes with a hanky so you're really just cutting with the very tip of the blade and I find more than other tools it's really important to keep them super sharp now the way you hold it is a bit like a dagger with your thumb over the top and you are cutting down but you're holding it all a slight angle so I'm leaning I'm not there to go and slightly to the right so I hope you can see that and and you want to cut so you've got the bit you're keeping is to the right of you if you're right-handed you're just cutting at a slight angle down to there and stop no I would tend to do is cut all four sides first so this isn't removing any liner yet we're just making a cut so we're basically cutting with a hanky toe you're cutting two sides of a valley so here we're cutting the first side and then you go in and you cut the second side of the valley so you're cutting egg in the opposite direction to the first cut and I tend to hold it to a bit more like a pen and I do this and you you just cut down and if you've cut deep enough on both cuts you should get a piece that comes out and pops out there now now this takes a bit of practice to be able to cut that straight line I haven't done it that much but there's definitely if you practice it it gets easier sometimes if you haven't cutting deep enough that little piece won't pop out go back try and get the knife in the first there we go just be careful when you're picking these bits out it was very easy to put a nick in in the line come on I still know and then you would use your you gouge to go back and clear the middle of that and use a medium you go just to mix it out so I don't use the hanky too very much from my general line wet I would tend to use that the you the you gouge is actually this medium you go just the one I use the most for this but there is one thing that I used the in Guiteau for and that is cutting tiny little shapes with straight sides so diamond squares triangles it's very useful for that because what you can do if that's small enough is just do the cut around the edge and they all join up in the middle so let's see if I can get that to work so I'm holding holding the tool quite an angle here cutting down hard to see when you met and you've done the cuts that's quite hard to see where they are two sides of triangle [Music] the third side and if you've done it right that bit should just pop out nicely so you can do this with any geometric shape let's go straight lines and just it's really good for getting right into those points you can do stars and stuff now this shapes a bit bigger so they may not the cuts may not join up in the middle to see cutting the wrong shape there we go there okay let's come out so I've cut that line there there we go and they will print with really nice crisp edges so I've got a few other shapes here I'm going to show you how to cut and for these I'm going to use my large V so here I've got a star shape now you can do these with a knife as I've shown you or if you use a larger E you can actually start at the tip of that point the star and come into the middle very badly drawn star but it gives you an idea depending on the angle that you hold it's all you can get a wider angle on the cut so I'm here I'm lifting my wrist up I'm cutting more down into the block that gives you a wider cut and then if you want a more narrow angle you bring your wrist in you've got your start and now to do the outside edge this angles too wide to do with the V so of what I probably would do is take my little your gouge and start in the corner here and come out like that and this one I might attempt let me the V it's probably going to be too wide at the end there we go so I've all right on the edge but I've not met that edge so I go back with my Yugo Jan just widen that bit cutting stars is fun that's the nice thing to practice [Music] and again I think I've mentioned before but I can't remember um you can adjust the width of the line as you're cutting so even if you've drawn the line too thick you can make it thinner as you cut right so this next one the sort of boat shape I'm going to do this again with a large V now when you cut into here you're going to go deeper and then as you come out again you bring your wrist right down to the liner and it should pop out so I'm going to attempt to cut this in one bring my wrist right down there we go um this next shape the diamond you can do it again with the large V and the way you do that is you cut half spin it round cut the alarm off this is the same thing except I've got two different shapes either edge so more of a gradual widening cutting a shadow right angle turning it round and then this is a 90-degree angle more honest I'm coming in really steep to cut that now I've missed that up a bit I've got a dink out of this I'll just ride on that side this next one is a double back shape so instead of coming out of the liner just as the tip of that tool comes up I'm going to go deep again so you're rolling your wrist up and down oops missed at the end but you get the idea and then this one I'm getting wider and thinner but also rotating that all as I go so this is a really nice technique for doing water and things like that a little wormy shape that does take a bit of practice but it's so satisfying when you get it right this one I'm going to use the combination of tools so I've got a V to do the this end of it so this is kind of an ice-cream cone shaped and then you turn it around I'm gonna she cut the other half with a large you coming in quite a steep angle to make a little rounder and then this last shape here I'm gonna show you just again with the large you coming in quite steep now you bring it all back slightly and bend it over you should get a nice semicircle do the same thing here don't worry if if things aren't exactly in the right place because when you print it nine times out of ten you won't notice it so as a rule I tend to use the biggest tool that I can because I think it gives a cleaner line and more interesting mark saves you time and I think it may not be quite as accurate but like I say it doesn't usually matter something slightly out one other thing I'll show you with a little with a large V I just see you can do it a triangle with that as well so coming in very steep cuts use two sides of the triangle and then you break that over so bring it back you know tall back fold it over then you get a nice triangle and you can do different shape triangles so really you can use all these shapes to build up different textures this is a really nice technique for doing fish scales and you can vary the size of the marks and the direction you won't be seeking you can do little dots so this is a large it's very you versatile tool because you can do these tiny tiny dots just by scraping and then bigger bigger bigger dots and get some really nice texture so have a play with all your tools see what marks you can make and then have fun see you next time

Channel: Linocutboy

Views: 28,539

Rating: 4.9532709 out of 5

Keywords: Linocut, carving, printmaking, relief printing, lino print, printing, lino, tutorial, how to, linocutting

Id: XYBwIB9A8V8

Length: 22min 5sec (1325 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2020