in the studio

This week was all about relief printing. Early in the week I printed from styrofoam. An old meat tray (well cleaned) can be used just by drawing into it with a pencil. This can then be relief rolled or painted onto. I had mixed results with this. Several times mid process, I thought I really should be taking pictures of this, but it didn't happen. There will be a step by step post if I do it again.

monoprint:first try, painted in. 

Seeing this made me realize that I needed the background to complete the image. I cleaned off the plate and rolled it with acrylic paint, because it was handy. And now it makes more sense.

relief rolled

third try, painted in, monoprint

This is the plate post printing the above image. 

I really liked the look of the plate a whole lot better than the look of the print. Another artist suggested I print on black paper. I told her she was a genius. Sometimes you need someone else to point out things that are obvious.

. This is pre-printing.

I had a scrap of dark blue pastel paper. I didn't soak it because I didn't really think it would hold up to the water. And I used mostly straight paint without an extender. It didn't print except for couple of smudges. I didn't even bother to take a picture of it. Still worth examining further.

Next up was linoleum block print, or linocut for short. I did take some good in progress pics and posted about it earlier in the week here.

I was too light in the carving on this first try. The next day, I recarved parts of it and changed the blend. This was closer to what I wanted.

Today I reprinted with a slightly different color story and I am really happy with this. This picture isn't great, but I was dealing with late afternoon light. The paper is white. I printed an edition of 8 on this one. Printmaking isn't up on my website yet, so if you are interested in one of these, contact me directly.

Next up: some more experimenting! I have a plan for a multi-color lino (probably) multiple edition project based on the work I did this week. Another foam tray project, if for no other reason than to document it better than I did. And I've discovered not only paper lithography but aluminum foil lithography - although these will require some extra supplies like oil based ink.