The (non) cutting edge

Day four and I'm printing a second layer of green, same mix of colours but a little more blue. My blip however is a detail from the block itself. Many people are introduced to lino printing in art lessons at school. If my school was typical then it usually involves rock hard old brown lino, blunt gouges and a degree of blood loss. This is different, this is experimental printmaking. You could say its the cutting edge, without the cutting.  Instead of using gouges to remove layers of lino, I've been 'etching' the design onto the block using caustic soda and a wooden skewer. Its a much more dynamic and rather less controlled approach -although I mix the caustic soda with wallpaper paste as well as water so that its not completely out of control . Crucially, from the point of view of my seven day challenge, its much quicker than  cutting! I've discovered that the depth of the 'etch' depends on the strength of the acid, the length of time its left on the block and the ambient temperature.  I'm leaving the acid on the block for between 30 and 90 minutes, any longer and it seems to lose its potency.  I've tried this technique once before (a great crested newt print), with mixed success, but I liked the quality of the transition between colours and I thought it would suit this design. You can see areas of brown lino where there has been no acid (yet), areas of green which is the ink staining from the previous layers of printing and lots of white blobs. That is a crust on top of the acid. I discovered by accident that it reacts with sunlight which gives the semi-transparent liquid this white crust. When I'm happy that the acid has done its thing I clean the block with cold water, dry it and then its ready for inking up.  Traditionalists need not worry - there will be a little bit of gouging, and hopefully no blood loss - on the next layer.