Faux linocut 4

[William Overington]

[walt.farrell]

Which Affinity application did you use to create that design, Williams?

Anything interesting you'd like to share about your technique?

[William Overington]

I used Affinity Designer.

I used the Transform panel to accurately place the wheels, setting the numbers to be centred on the centre spot of the lower edge of the bounding box, so that the wheels each sat on the (unshown) rails.

I made the body of the locomotive by starting with an ellipse, converting to curves, then I used the node tool to delete the lower centre point, then I made the two end points to become sharp corners. Then I added a point to make the back of the tender. I lined everything up using numbers entered into the Transform panel.

I made the smoke from ellipses, gradually making them bigger and longer to try to show that the locomotive is running at speed and that the smoke dissipates, then using various levels of opacity to indicate the dissipation of the smoke.

I realize that doing the smoke that way could not, as far as I know, be done with a real linocut, so I am thinking of trying to have another version where the smoke dissipation is done with white swirls that gradually have thinner white lines farther apart.

I made the wheels first, then lowered the body of the locomotive all in one piece onto them after designing it further up the canvas. I grouped it all, then I added the black rectangle and moved it to the back then I coloured the locomotive and its smoke white.

As I drew the picture I saved what I had done in case I made a mistake and had to go back.

William

 

[William Overington]

The picture is not meant to be photographic, but this locomotive in its rebuilt form inspired the picture.

https://www.lner.info/locos/W/w1.php

Please note that the faux linocut has a 4-6-4 wheel arrangement and an 8-wheeled tender.

William

 

[William Overington]

On 1/15/2024 at 6:09 PM, William Overington said:

 

I realize that doing the smoke that way could not, as far as I know, be done with a real linocut, so I am thinking of trying to have another version where the smoke dissipation is done with white swirls that gradually have thinner white lines farther apart.

 

I begin my making a copy of the source file that I produced.

I am not entirely sure how to complete the task at present. I am thinking, for each of the six smoke items, to make the line white and to have thickness, then convert to curves and then break the curve open at the lowest point. So I can try that to observe if that will give the desired effect.

 

 

 

[William Overington]

That seems to work in a qualitative sense that the faux linocut 004a is an image that could have possibly been made as a real linocut.

I gradually reduced the point size of the stroke that depicts the smoke 4, 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1 as I went from smoke item to smoke item from left to right in the picture, finding out that it is not only whole numbers of point sizes that can be used.

 

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, William Overington said:

I am thinking, for each of the six smoke items, to make the line white and to have thickness, then convert to curves and then break the curve open at the lowest point.

For the same result with less work, break and adjust the first ellipse and then create duplicates from there.

[Alfred]

On 1/15/2024 at 6:09 PM, William Overington said:

I realize that doing the smoke that way could not, as far as I know, be done with a real linocut

You could use the ‘reduction linocut’ process to create a multi-layer print, but that would be a tedious and unforgiving method!

[William Overington]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

For the same result with less work, break and adjust the first ellipse and then create duplicates from there.

Yes, if starting a new picture.

I was modifying the first picture, so although I had thought of that I did not do so, because I would have needed to record x, y, width, height for each smoke item as text in, say, a WordPad file so as to get the same positions and shapes.

In the event, once I had adapted two of the smoke items the others did not take long to do.

Your suggested method would however have the advantage of precise copies of the first shape rather than my adjustment by eye.

William

 

[Alfred]

19 minutes ago, William Overington said:

I would have needed to record x, y, width, height for each smoke item as text in, say, a WordPad file so as to get the same positions and shapes

No, you could have left them in situ so that they would be available for lining up the new versions correctly via snapping, after which you could have deleted them (or merely hidden them).

[William Overington]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

You could use the ‘reduction linocut’ process to create a multi-layer print, but that would be a tedious and unforgiving method!

An interesting idea.

What would be reasonable rules?

With a real reduction linocut, I think one prints first with a light colour ink, say, a semi-pale yellow, then with some other colours, then finally a dark colour, such as black or say, a deep blue. Alignment to pixel accuracy might be impossible, but that might not be critical if inks are 100% opaque.

With a faux reduction linocut, say an A3 PDF document to upload to a virtual print house, I think that one can have that pixel accuracy.

One could also have 100% opaque electronic inks.

Yet should one use by choice, 90% opaque electronic inks?

Or would that make no difference except making the print look as if it was done with inks of colours different from those actually used? It would not be like one shape printed over a different shape where the overlap would show through faintly.

I am not sure at present but maybe a reduction faux linocut would be easier to do than trying to make a separate block for each colour.

William