My First Carving (gulp!)

 





I finally made it into Dakota Art Store to buy a linoleum block carving tool. This nifty little gadget by Speedball, has five different blades that all fit inside the handle when not in use. It cost about $13.00, but I have seen them online at Dick Blick and Speedball for less. I wanted to shop local so I was willing to pay a bit more. 
 I had heard that using blocks of something called Speedy-Cut would be easier to carve in than linoleum for a beginner like me.  Looking at both the lino and the Speedy-Cut blocks side by side, I could see that the lino is stiffer than the Speedy-Cut and it seemed more forgiving. So, I  got a small block (2"X 5") of Speedy-Cut to cut into. Then, I beat it home to get my carve on!!


  I decided to do a printing of an owl. I sketched out my design and transferred it to the block. To do this I turned my finished picture 
over and rubbed pencil over the area the design was in. Next, I positioned the drawing, pencil rubbed side down, onto the  block. Now the drawing was face up again and I then traced back over the entire picture again. When the paper was taken off the block, there was the owl! The drawing on the block was light, so I went back over the lines to make them stand out more. Then I added some more detail like a crescent moon, a star and some leaves on the branch. Anything you carve will be printed in reverse. Keep this in mind when transferring the image to the block. That means text will look backwards. I have not carved a block with any lettering on it yet. That will be a later post!



  This is what the block looked like with the
finished drawing on it.

Now it was time to carve. I LOVED this part of the project!!With the help of my husband (who has done block printing in the past) and a video tutorial from Urban Outfitters, I came up with this.

 I started by carving the outline of the owl first, then the rest. I used the smallest (#1)blade for the tiny details and the largest blade(#5) on the remaining image. The trick here is carve out everything that you want to be white or not pick up any ink. Always remember to carve away from yourself, the blades are sharper than they look!
  
Ready to print! I put a pea sized amount of red and yellow acrylic paint on a big plastic plate. You need a plastic or glass non-porous surface to roll your ink or paint onto. I mixed the colors by rolling the brayer (roller) through the paint until I was happy with the shade. I kept rolling over the paint until the brayer was tacky, then I rolled it over the surface of the block. I quickly found out that too much paint made the print blurry. Doing test prints on scrap paper is the way to go.


 This is what one of the better prints looks like. I got so excited about the whole thing, was not paying attention, and  printed on the wrong side of about eight blank greeting cards. That was my worst mistake, not too bad! I'll find a use for the misprints, don't you worry.

 My head is buzzing with all the carving ideas I have. Too bad I have to eat and sleep!

The Rebirth of Block Printing

 I have been trying to come up with some new crafting ideas. It has to be inexpensive, unique, user friendly and did I mention inexpensive. All this was rattling around in my head, when I had a flash....wait for it....wait for it....Block Printing!


 About eight years ago, my artistic Boyfriend took a Block Printing class. He really enjoyed it and had gotten quite good at it. He made a print that we ended up using on our wedding invitations ( making him my artistic Husband).
 Well, life goes on, and with the birth of our son a lot of things fell by the wayside. For me, it was playing the guitar and sleeping all day. For my Husband it was calling chips and salsa a meal and Block Printing. So, I dusted off his box full of Block Printing supplies and tried my hand at it last night.


 Block Printing is a lot like using rubber stamps except you get to make the stamps your self. It's carved with a nifty little tool into squares of printing linoleum. Next, you ink your image and press it onto paper. Speedball Art is a great resource for Block Printing supplies and has a great online catalog.


  There is a learning curve and I made A LOT of mistakes. But, it was fun! I got to see the beautiful Block my sweet man made for our wedding invites for the first time in years. Very special.


 Another plus is that we seem to have most of the supplies we need for this craft(except for the carving tool) which meets my "Inexpensive" criteria.
  Next I want to try carving some blocks myself. I have some ideas of simple designs (owls,acorns,ukuleles etc.)and I am so excited to try! 
 High Fives for rediscovering Block Printing!!