Relief Prints

Relief printing was my introduction to printmaking in 2015 (unless you count my lino cuts in high school!). An image is carved into the plate or block using a variety of tools and techniques. It is the remaining surface of the plate or block that is inked before printing. I use wood and linoleum (lino) blocks. I also print with natural materials like tree trunks, leaves, vegetables and dried flowers - anything with appealing texture.

Lino cuts are my favourite relief printing medium. I enjoy making both the graphic black and white prints, as well as multi-block and colour reduction prints. Multi-block printing involves using multiple blocks to transfer colours to the paper. Reduction prints involve carving the plate after each colour has been printed, normally working from light to dark colours - thus the block is reduced. The very courageous combine multiple blocks with reduction. In the end, each print may have been through the press as many times as there are colours in the image.

Relief prints may be augmented by chine collée (papers added during the printing process) or by printing onto paper that already carries colour, another image, a map or a photo, for example.

A word about numbering and editions. A numbered edition is a series of prints that are as similar as possible. A variable edition (V.E.) is where different colours, chine collée or over-printing, for example, are introduced. A unique print is exactly that - a one-off.

Photo Gallery

SOLD OUT Waning Gibbous, June 2017
Reduction linocut 12x11"

"Winter Nomad", reduction linocut of an immature female Snowy Owl.

Woodcut of a Barred Owl, with Chine collée. Available in various colours.

Browsing the Waterlilies
Woodcut, 36x24"
Carved for a steamroller printing project in 2020

"New" is a Hereford-Murray Grey cross calf. 4x4" linocut

"Browsing" is an immature bull Moose foraging at the forest edge. Linocut 12x9"

"MF 35" in a 4x4" linocut, also available coloured with watercolour inks.

"The Old Vicarage Dresser" 12x9" linocut

SOLD OUT "Pileated Woodpecker" Lino cut, 6"x4.25", $60

SOLD OUT "Owl", Linocut with Chine Collé, $80

"Durham Catherdral", Linocut, 7x10", $200

SOLD OUT "Afloat", 16 colour reduction linocut, 5x9", $160

"Riverside Relic", linocut, 8.5x12", $160

Susan Cartwright Art

Original art works by printmaker Susan Cartwright

Relief Prints

Photo Gallery