Tracing a Photograph into a Reduction Linocut
Level 2 printmaking candidate Hemi has produced a four-colour reduction linocut for the printmaking drawing standard. His source is a photograph of a 1950s Wellington street found on a museum website; the caption says the photographer is unidentified and the image is 'out of copyright'. Hemi enlarged the image on his phone, traced the main shapes directly onto the lino, and cut and printed the reduction in four passes. He printed an edition of 12, numbered and signed 1/12 to 12/12. The registration is slightly off in the second colour on five prints, and one print has a finger mark in the black. In his workbook he writes: 'My work is about memory and the city.' His teacher is concerned that the work may be reproduction rather than an original print, and that Hemi cannot explain the printmaking decisions. The folio is due Friday.
1. Is Hemi's use of the photograph acceptable appropriation or problematic copying? Explain the test you would apply.
Read the worked answer
Appropriation is not automatically a problem. Artists routinely use existing images. The test is whether the new work transforms the source and whether the source is acknowledged. Legal status is a separate question: 'out of copyright' reduces legal risk but does not satisfy the standard's requirement for original work.
What Hemi has done so far. Enlarging and tracing the main shapes is close to reproduction, because the photograph is still doing the compositional work. The workbook gives no record of what he changed, cropped, removed, recoloured or emphasised. Without that record, the assessor sees a copy, not an appropriation with an argument.
What would make it transformative. Evidence that Hemi selected and altered: for example, cropping out the cars to isolate the shopfronts, changing the colour to a memory palette, removing one side of the street, or repeating a figure. The test is whether the new work makes a claim that the photograph did not make.
Recommendation. Require a source-transformation page showing the photograph, a tracing, and at least three deliberate changes with reasons. Acknowledging the source does not weaken the work; it makes the appropriation legible.
2. Identify the printmaking conventions Hemi has demonstrated and those he has not, and explain how each missing convention would change the work.
Read the worked answer
Demonstrated. Reduction printing, four colour layers, cutting, editioning, numbering and signing. Those are real conventions, so the work is not devoid of printmaking knowledge.
Not demonstrated. Registration control is the clearest gap: five of twelve prints are out of register in the second colour. Registration is the convention that produces a crisp edge and allows colour to sit exactly where the printmaker intends. Without it, the second colour reads as an accident rather than a decision. Proofing is also missing: the finger mark suggests no final proof was inspected before the edition was numbered. A proof is how a printmaker decides what the image needs before committing the edition.
Edition consistency. Numbering 12 prints as 1/12 to 12/12 implies a uniform edition. If five are misregistered and one is marked, the edition is not consistent. Hemi should either reject the flawed prints, reprint, or declare a variable edition and document the variation as intentional.
Why this matters. These conventions are not housekeeping. They determine whether the print reads as controlled or careless, and whether the assessor can see understanding of printmaking as a process.
3. Write the feedback you would give Hemi on Friday, with three specific actions.
Read the worked answer
Feedback. The four-colour reduction shows that you can plan and cut a sequence, and the colour layering is the strongest part of the submission. The weakness is evidence: the workbook does not show what you changed from the photograph, and the edition has registration and proofing problems that make the print look less controlled than it is.
Action 1: source-transformation page. Put the photograph, your tracing, and a new sketch side by side. Mark at least three changes you made or will make, and write one sentence for each explaining why. This converts the source from a template into material you have shaped.
Action 2: reprint two prints with registration marks. Use a registration sheet or jig, pull a proof before cutting the next colour, and check the proof before printing the edition. Reject the five misregistered prints or renumber as a variable edition with a written explanation.
Action 3: connect the idea to a formal decision. Replace 'about memory and the city' with one specific claim, for example that soft registration is used to make the street feel remembered rather than documented. If you claim that, show it across the edition so it reads as a decision, not an accident.