About
About the Linocut
The linoleum cut or linocut is a form of relief print similar to the woodcut or wood engraving. Relief printing itself is the oldest method of print making. As a process, it involves cutting areas away from a smooth surface. What remains (i.e., that which has not be cut away) stands out in relief and forms the final printing surface. Ink is applied to this raised surface and the block pressed much like a stamp onto paper, fabric, etc. to obtain the printed image. The finished print is a mirror image or a left to right reversal of the block. The paper color appears where the block has been cut away; the ink color where it has not been cut away. Multiple colors can be obtained by cutting separate blocks for each color, by using the more sophisticated “subtraction” technique, or by hand coloring the image after it has been printed.
Linoleum, made from compressed cork and linseed oil, provides an excellent medium for this printing process. It is smooth, soft enough to cut easily and free of grain or an imposed cutting direction. At the same time, the “crumbly” texture of linoleum resists fine lines or close detail giving linocuts their characteristic high contrasts and broad color areas. It is a material which readily accepts tooling marks and allows for spontaneity of design. For these reasons, it has become a popular medium for many artists, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Lyonel Feninger notable among them.
About the Art Work
My prints are all limited edition prints. Some were created years ago, some last year, and some only yesterday. All are hand printed on museum quality paper, numbered, and signed. All my work is available for sale and ranges from $20 -$90, depending on size, complexity, difficulty printing, and popularity. If you would like additional information or are interested in purchasing a particular print, please contact me, Laura B DeLind, via this website.
About Laura B DeLind
I have been creating linocuts for over forty years. Initially, printmaking was a way to relax and indulge the left side of my brain. Later, my love of black and white design and the challenge of integrating positive and negative space have kept me intellectually and physically engaged. On average, I work in my studio several hours each day.
My images tend to be bold and heavily patterned. As you might guess, I am drawn to Inuit art and its elegant simplicity. Like indigenous artists, my work incorporates organic shapes and ideas I get from the natural environment – often things I’ve observed in my own backyard (e.g., a feather, a fence, a stand of grasses). Many of my prints are of birds – or bird-like figures. I do enjoy watching birds and envy their ability to fly. But I am not a birder or a naturalist. Rather, I use birds, as one friend observed, as “a ready-made excuse to play with shape and pattern.” The birds don’t seem to mind.
My work has shown throughout Michigan and the United States. It appears, together with poems by Anita Skeen in The Unauthorized Audubon (MSU Press: 2014). It also appears in Lavender Hill Farm by Jennifer Otto (Mead-Hill Press: 2015), and on the cover of The Organic Movement in Michigan (MOFFA: 2017).
I have taught print-making classes at Michigan State University, Grove Gallery and Studios in East Lansing, the Lansing Art Gallery, and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp as well as intensive, week-long workshops at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM. I enjoy sharing my love of relief printing with both kids and adults, always learning as much from them as they do from me. If you are interested in a linocut workshop, contact me, Laura B DeLind, via this website.