Dynamic Sphere

 

There's a book called Dynamic Sphere of Aikido, or something like that, published quite a while ago now, that is illustrated with a whole lot of little brush drawings. I made a copy of one of them about 1990, and now I've made a linocut of that copy.

The paper is A6, cut down from a sheet of cartridge paper.

I wanted to make a print of this image because I thought it would be well suited to a linocut rendition, which it is. But at this particular moment, I mainly wanted to experiment with a way of transferring the image to the block by gluing a laser print to it with acrylic varnish, face down, and then wetting the paper and rubbing it away with a finger, leaving just the toner on the block. It works well, and I'll use the technique again, though I'll try printing on to a light tissue paper rather than ordinary printer paper – I think it will rub away more effectively.

I have used this image transfer method once before, but I haven't yet done any experimentation with ways to optimise the process.

Later...

Here's me using my finger to rub away at some tissue that I printed some stuff on. As I suspected, it's much easier than using printer paper, and leaves me a much cleaner image to work to.

You do have to take care that you don't get too enthusiastic, or else you start rubbing the toner off as well. Stop once you've got a clear image, and don't get hung up on removing every last fibre of the paper -- it won't matter at all when it comes to cutting.

I reprinted the image, reversed, to give me a guide to the areas that I need to draw back in after rubbing away too much.

This seems to me like the sort of process that just a little experience would make better.

Later still...

Here's everything composited together, though printed somewhat imperfectly.

I used a paper mask to roll up the various bits of the text block in two separate colours without getting ink everywhere.

I found the tagline text very difficult to ink up consistently, being such a long, narrow isolated area. The roller kept falling out of true, one way or the other.

I think I will probably cut up the text/logo/calligraphy block and use the individual elements separately. That will make them more flexible in use, and it's not as if precise placement is all that important for an image like this.