First lino prints

Here are my first lino prints.
1: I decided to use white paint on a coloured card background. The card was not mean't for the paint though and some of the fibres of the paper peeled away when I lifted the lino away. I used the roller to apply paint to the linoblock before printing but I think there was too much paint although I tried to thin it first by rolling out in a tray as directed - the paint had fallen just over the edges into some of the carved out areas. The paint didn't roll on to the lino block - it just pushed the paint across for some reason - not sure if it was too thick.

2: I tried to thin the paint further by rolling out in the tray more and applying to the lino block in the opposite direction (horizontally) in case it made a difference. There still seemed to be too much paint (bleeding into the carved out negative areas) and the paint was just pushed across the lino block rather than rolling it on flat - I don't know how to fix this. I do like the effect it has given though - looking like a landscape behind the tree.

3. Next I decided to try painting on the ink instead of rolling. This was good because it used less paint. I used a large brush to get the paint on fairly quickly before it dried as I didn't use too much ink - I didn't want it to bleed into the negative space as before. I like the effect this has created with the brush strokes looking like bark on the tree trunk. I created three images from the same application of ink like a ghost image.

4. I applied more paint in these two prints because the previous run didn't seem to have quite enough ink. I used a paintbrush again and applied the paint fairly quickly. Again, the ink bled into the negative space. Not sure what to do about this - these are 3mm lino blocks and I know that 5mm thicknesses are available so maybe I should try these and carve away more of the negative space so that this bleeding doesn't happen.

5. I wanted to do one more run of prints while I had the materials out so I tried applying the ink with the same brush to the lino block but this time by dabbing it on quite thickly and quickly. I printed onto thick cardboard. I like the effect this gave - a natural texture to the tree bark and the ink didn't seem to bleed into the negative space so much as the previous attempts.

With what I've learned here I will next try to do a print with more than one colour.