 The Story of the Block Prints When people see the prints, they always ask me, "what are they, how did you do them?" So here's the story. In July of 2002, I took a class on making prints and linocuts from our local art store. I mostly took the class as a "creative vacation" from my regular work. At the time, we were a single income family and I was feeling the pressure of being creative, literally and figuratively, to pay the bills in a down economy. I really needed something to help me lighten up and have fun making art again. During the class I learned about a new material by Speedball: Speedy Stamp, rubber pads that could be carved similar to linoleum blocks. The resulting image was then printed onto paper the same way a linoleum print is made. Because the blocks are rubber, they are much easier to cut than linoleum. I was immediately hooked. I've always loved print style artwork, but after stabbing myself plenty of times in art school while working on linocut assignments, I was happy to turn to watercolor, a media that results in far fewer trips to the ER. But these new rubber blocks offered a possibility of some new funky printed images - and a creative high that I hadn't had in a while. So I bought the carving tools, brayer, and several rubber pads and set about making prints. The first few images back in the studio were really trial and error....and more error. I learned I couldn't be as exacting in detail as I am on my watercolors. Also the negative spaces were really something to get used to. When slivers were left around a shape I was carving out, they showed up as fascinating little squiggles in the print. I soon learned to enjoy these little lines of energy and planned for them in the print. At first I tried oil-based ink, because it was what we had used in the class, but before long I switched to water-based for ease of clean-up. I also started printing on smooth Letramax illustration board because that's what I use for my usual watercolor assignments. While those prints were OK, when I tried rough paper I discovered that I could get even more interesting textures from the print. Plus, paper was easier to work with, I could cut it down into 5" x 7" cards instead of trying to wield a 15" x 20" sheet of board. Coloring the prints was another adventure. Using the oil-based ink, I could easily paint over the black and white print in watercolor or water marker, but after switching to water-based ink, that didn't work. The ink ran into the paint making a muddy mess. I'm still figuring this problem out. My most recent solution is mixing colors of ink to form a brown color that doesn't run as much when another wet media is applied to it. Of the examples shown, New Home is the one done with this method. To date I've done many, many prints, most are versions that never make it to the coloring stage. While my watercolor still pays the bills, I have done a few block print assignments and enjoyed them. I hope to do more block print projects in the future. Someday I can see marketing them as greeting cards or journals. But at this point they are still my creative vacation. |