Gilding Linocuts

Cancelling Printing Blocks

Linocut with gold leaf. Next step is burnishing.

When I studied with Judith Solodkin, the first woman to graduate from Tamarind Institute as a Master Lithographer, I learned a lot about printmaking and limited editions. One of the many lessons I learned was the importance of cancelling my plates when I was finished with an edition.

Applying gold leaf to linocut

Cancelling plates ensures the integrity of the size of my original editions, whether these editions consist of 5 prints or 75. Cancelling plates also prevents forgeries.

Retired linocut ready for gilding after applying an adhesive size.

I destroy my copper etching plates. I erase my litho stones. And I apply gold leaf to some of my linoleum blocks as a way of marking their "retirement" and preventing any further printing.

*Note: I usually apply a yellow gilding primer before applying the adhesive size. The primer gives a polished finish. However, with this linoleum block I wanted a more textured look with remnants of the previous inks peeking through.

Created in Baltimore

by Suzanne Coley

Comments

pappawolf said…

personally I reckon on putting a big "mark of zorro" over the plate as being the final mark I put on the plate prior to retirement, alternatively, with lino or woodblock you can always consign them to the furnace. A litho stone gets reground, an aluminium plate gets fed to the shredder and scrapped as aluminium swarf an etching copperplate folded and hammered prior to again being scrapped. Surely gilding a "finished with lino block" requires that you spend money on goldleaf... and doesn't actually prevent a determined person who got a hold of it from re-pulling from the block? a few determined minutes with some wet and dry carborundum paper and the few microns of gilding are gone!

August 6, 2021 at 11:45 AM

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