Printmaking: repeat and relief
Art & Design · Key Stage 2 · The School
The raised part prints
In a RELIEF print, ink sits on the raised surface and the cut-away parts stay blank. Press paper onto it and you get the raised shape. That is how a potato print, a lino cut and a rubber stamp all work. The important consequence is that you are cutting away everything you do NOT want, which takes some getting used to.
Everything comes out backwards
A print is a MIRROR IMAGE of the block. Anything asymmetrical flips: a face looks the other way, and — the one that catches everybody — letters and numbers come out reversed and unreadable. Any text has to be cut backwards into the block. Checking your design in a mirror before you cut is the standard professional habit.
Making it repeat
A repeating pattern needs the design to meet itself at the edges. The simplest reliable method: whatever leaves the right edge must enter the left at the same height, and the same top to bottom. Then a printed sheet can be tiled with no seam. Patterns like this run through Islamic tilework, William Morris wallpapers and printed fabric everywhere.
Cut your initial into a polystyrene tile and print it: it comes out MIRRORED. Anything you cut away stays white and everything left standing takes the ink — that is relief. So carve letters back to front, and remember it for the next print too. Now print the same tile four times in a grid, rotating it 90° each time: one block, and a pattern that looks nothing like the block.