Rhino Cutting

“No endangered animals were harmed in the making of this artwork.”

The most excellent Korduroy TV has been around for ages now but it’s only recently that i had a good trawl through the videos on there. I was looking for some advice on making a handplane and stumbled upon this other video about hand-printing a greetings card.

I haven’t done any lino-cutting and printing since scraping a ‘C’ at A-Level art so thought I’d give it a go for the first time in 15 years.

I looked around a couple of stationery shops for the right equipment but with the Korean pronunciation of ‘L’ and ‘R’ being somewhat interchangeable and in-between, I ended up asking, bizarrely, for “Rhino-Cutting” tools. As expected, something got lost in translation but I ended up with a sheet of rubber and some crude woodcarving tools that do the job and didn’t get arrested for animal cruelty, which was a bonus.

The resulting cut  is a bit raw and sketchy thanks to the dodgy tools (you know what a bad workman always blames) and it being mostly freehand and improvised, not to mention created under the influence of cider. All in all, I’m pretty pleased with it for a first go - it’s striking and has a nice textured look.

As you can see, although it looks good inked up, my first few prints haven’t been too successful as I’ve not found any proper printing ink here yet. I tried acrylic paint (as mentioned in the Korduroy video) watered-down acrylic, calligraphic ink, stamping ink, paint mixed with vegetable oil, paint mixed with glue, weird polystyrene paint and all of the above mixed together.

But… I couldn’t seem to get a clear even print that didn’t stick to the paper and pull it up. All this depite my hi-tech printing press that delivers between 55-60kg of pressure (depending on what i’ve eaten that day.)

I will keep you posted on progress and  if/when i finally get a good one I may put a few up for sale on my Droog 79 Sells Out blog to help fund my autumnal van meander along the coastlines of Europe….. All in a good cause.