Making MOLDS from TESSELLATION LINOCUTS

We want to make EXQUISITE TESSELLATION Ceramic floor tiles from the linocuts everyone is carving.  Therefore Aaron and I experimented at Quelab by making a plaster mold from my tessellation linocut, with the idea of pressing or pouring clay into it to make ceramic tiles:

Pulling out my linocut

out of the plaster mold

We want to transfer this linocut image

into a ceramic clay floor tile

FIRST TRY

Aaron and I made the first mold on July 2, 2025. We stuck two pieces of linoleum together, and the top linoleum floated upwards when we poured plaster over it.  However the bottom linoleum stayed put with double sided tape, so we did get a plaster mold:

 The other issue was that we reversed the ratio of water to plaster, and it took days for the plastic to set.

SECOND TRY

We tried again to make a mold on July 8, 2025, with more success.

We first laser cut a piece of acrylic in the shape of a "hat," but slightly bigger than the linocut.  The idea was to attach the linocut to this acrylic to give the mold some thickness:

The slightly bigger hat file:

Hat_larger.LBRN2 (8.54 KB)

We wanted the acrylic to bevel up, so that it would be easy to take out of the mold, having no "undercuts." So we focused the height of the laser cutter to give us a bevel:

Slight bevel at the edge of the acrylic,

to make it easier to take out of the mold

We tried to attach the linocut to the acrylic piece with rubber cement, but that did not work. The linocut absorbed the rubber cement, and it did not grab onto the slick plastic too well.  Ultimately we just attached the two pieces with strong double sided tape:

 

Aaron built a wooden box to pour the mold. He pressed wet clay at the seams, to keep the plaster from leaking from the box:

Aaron building the box

Sealing the edges

with rubber cement

My linocut at the bottom of the box

Aaron mixed plaster and water -- 7 parts water to 10 parts plaster by weight:

Weighing the plaster

Plaster weight --

8.73

Water weight --

6.12

Pouring the plaster into water

(to avoid clumps)

Pouring the plaster into the mold

On July 9, 2025, we pulled the pieces out of the mold.  The acrylic piece separated well, but the linocut was a little harder to pull out:

Aaron pulled at the edge of the linocut

to separate it from the mold

Ultimately we got a successful mold.  However the relief details are very delicate, and may not transfer well to clay, even if we use slip.

The final mold

with the faint detail from the linocut

The linocut was slightly damaged

at the edge

Probably a better solution would be to cut hat shapes from a clay slab -- with a die or a 3D printed "hat" shape -- and let them dry for a bit.  Then the leather hard clay is easy to carve before firing. 

April 7, 2025

Printmaking at CNM -- westside Albuquerque

Download -- "hat-monotile-cookiecad.STL" (295.88 KB)

to 3D print a Tessellation cookie cutter

UPDATE (July 21):  Aaron posted a cookie cutter "hat" shape on Thingiverse:

Einstein aperiodic tile cutter

I can imagine bringing a stack of tessellation pieces to Tumbleroot Pottery Pub in Santa Fe, because that bar will give you a piece of clay to sculpt when you buy a beer.

• Also Brian suggest cutting colored glass into tessellation "hat" shapes