Lino Printed Robot Birthday Card

This Instructable describes how to create a lino printed robot birthday card, as well as various other techniques such as designing text and multicoloured lino printing.

Tools:

1. Lino cutting tool (with various blades).
2. Ink roller.
3. Plate (non-porous).
4. Pencils.
5. Graphite crayon.
6. Pencil sharpener.
7. Waterproof pens (various sizes).
8. Paintbrushes (optional).

Materials:

1. Lino.
2. Block printing ink.
3. Paper/card.
4. Tracing paper.
5. Masking tape.
6. Soap (for cleaning rollers/lino).
7. Glue (optional).

Carefully draw out your design on paper using a pencil, ideally use blank paper, but drawing on square paper can make it easier to create more proportional and three-dimensional designs. Remember it will be carved out of lino, so take this into consideration when drawing your design.

When creating cards it is important to have well designed evenly spaced lettering. To design lettering first measure the width of available space for lettering on your card (excluding margins), then divide the length of the space by the number of letters in the longest word you will be including. The resulting length will then be the length of each letter including spacing. Next decide on the height that you would like your letters to be, ensure it is proportional to there width. For the spacing between the lines aim for the space to be about a quarter of the height of the letters as this will change proportionally according to the height of the letters. When creating the alignment of the rows of words, if you are centre aligning them it is useful to use a ruler and have a centre line as this will make it a lot easier to have the words accurately aligned.

Use masking tape to securely attach a sheet of tracing paper over your design for the card. Then using a sharp pencil trace your design onto the tracing paper. Next securely attach the tracing to your lino with masking tape (ensure that it has the traced side facing down). Transfer the design to the lino by carefully rubbing the back of the tracing with a blunt graphite crayon or blunt pencil. When the design has been accurately transferred onto the lino, darken the faint graphite design with a waterproof pen to make the design easier to carve out.

Place your lino on the cutting mat and use your lino cutter to carefully cut away the excess lino around your design. First use the spoon shaped cutter to cut round the shapes and detailed parts of your design, then use the v shaped cutter to remove the rest of the lino and create intricate details. When carving ensure that you do not remove any lino where your design has been marked out as this will show up in your print. Try to keep your edges as fine as possible as this will look best once it has been printed.

For this stage you will want to use a plate with a non porous surface the same size as your roller, Carefully apply a line of printing ink across the plate, then roll your roller across it until it evenly coats the plate and your roller.

Next roll your roller across your design to ensure that all parts of it are carefully coated in an even layer of ink.

Carefully place your lino on top of the card/paper in its intended position, then firmly roll the other ink free roller across the back of the lino with a large amount of force. (Remember not to let the lino slip as this will create a misaligned print and to keep the ink and paper free from dust).

For a more professional finish print your design directly onto a card, however you can also print your design onto other paper or card and then glue it to your card.

This step is very similar to the previous step. However the design can be printed in multiple colours by using a paintbrush to carefully apply different colours of ink to different areas of the lino. Remember to apply the main colour first with the roller to avoid mixing up your main colour.

If you have any scrap lino left over from creating your card design, you can use it to create extra mini prints to add on to your cards. They are created using the same processes as the main print.

Allow your card to dry, keep them in a clean dust free place where they are unlikely to be blown away by wind, the ink will probably dry after a few hours.

Thank you for reading this Instructable. I hope you enjoy creating this project.