crystal portraits finished!

clockwise from top >> tibetan clear quartz : tangerine quartz : amethyst

I just finished up my crystal portraits this morning! The black outlines on the tangerine quartz prints are drying as I type.

After a few failed attempts at realigning the old Tibetan quartz linos I scrapped them and started over. (So much better!) The newly carved blocks were much easier to register. It's very subtle, but I snuck a little yellow into the white ink along the bottom half of those guys and love the way it turned out.

Today would be a good day to take them out for listing photos as it's sunny and fairly dry, but as I said before, the black on the tangerine quartz is still very fresh and I don't want it to get all smudged and ruined. Dang. I really wanna get that part done. I'm definitely going to sell them as a set on Etsy, but can't decide if I should also offer them individually as they're quite small.

in progress :: crystal portraits

I've been working on my miniature linocut crystal portraits again and I think I totally nailed it on the amethyst!

I am so happy with the way these came out, even better than I hoped and definitely better than I expected. (They're only two and a half inches square!) Before I started the amethyst prints I had completed a run of Tibetan clear quartz, but now seeing the quality of the amethyst I'm going to re-carve and print them.

Each print in this series (a third stone is coming, tangerine quartz!) will be printed with two blocks, one for the shape and one for the outline. I've already carved down the outlines on the Tibetan quartz so the line weight is thinner and I'll reprint it in black, the shape will stay white but maybe with a little pop of yellow somewhere. Lining up the registration on the amethyst prints was fairly easy because I made sure the carved images on both of the blocks were positioned identically, unfortunately I didn't make sure of this on the Tibetan quartz blocks and the images are positioned at slightly different angles making proper registration much more difficult. Hopefully I can find a way to compensate for this with out having to carve one of the blocks again. I've posted this image before, but here are some of the drawings that started these portraits.

snail lover

A sweet little snail lover to accompany our slug buddy.

Awwwe! Both slug + snail are linoleum block prints inspired by drawings I had made previously for my sweetie. This is the first time that I've used the carved negative space on the block for a textural effect and I really like it! I was also much more casual with the way I carved these two, I didn't over think the drawing-to-carving transition and just worked the block intuitively. I'm really happy with the result!

Both are available in my shop and so far have been a hit! Thanks guys!

slug buddy

He loves you.

And is for sale in my shop!

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As you've probably noticed, I've added some pages up top; on the first you'll find choice nuggets from my past and present art journals and on the second a smattering of hand pulled prints. Go check 'em out if you haven't already! Let me know what you think!

Another print!

These words are a simple expression of the unity of our universe; found in the Chuang Tzu, the full passage reads "Heaven and earth are one attribute; the ten thousand things are one horse." The Chuang Tzu is a book of Chinese Taoist philosophy and was gifted to me by the aforementioned Elliot Knapp. Thanks, buddy! The first time I encountered Taoist philosophy was in reading the well known Tao Te Ching. The Tao or The Way of Nature, resonated with me as a deep and eternal truth that I had always known, but perhaps lost sight of for a time. Both the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu encourage us to simply let all things in the universe be as they are; to flow and find harmony as everything in Nature is allowed to be as it truly is.

Oh, and this print is for sale in my Etsy shop. :)

help.

Here's a look at the print I've been working on lately. It's coming along slowly, but it's also more ambitious than any of the other prints I've done, being a fair bit larger (6 x 9-ish) and with more complicated line work. I've gotten this far, but honestly I'm not sure where to go from here. The outline plate is finished but I would like this print to have a few layers happening, I feel it needs some color and texture in the background. Huhhhh, it exhausts me. Any thoughts?

No. 2

A second hand pulled block print, spawned in my art journal now for sale on Etsy!

death is a meal.

Yay! I finished a print and it is now the first to be for sale in my shop - forelock.etsy.com! Cool.

Printing this was real fun, and real good practice too. It started with a little type doodle in my art journal, later I found that certain images kept swimming around with those words in my head - so a print it became! I love working over a sketch then transferring it to a block for carving. And oh, how I love to carve! I find it so satisfying - it tests my patience, control, and attention to detail while also being completely self indulgent (knives! cutting!). Win - win!

The next step has been what I struggle with most so far, on and off the press. I've had this really filthy misconception about printing. I assumed that all my hard work would be done in the sketching/carving/typesetting/etc phases, so that when I was finally ready to print I'd just be able to bang 'em right out 1! 2! 3! I could not have been wronger. There is as much work in printing each image as there is in each of the previous steps. Every single image needs particular attention paid.

So here I am bubble burst + lesson learned, and all the better for it. I didn't use the press for these prints, instead I pulled each by hand so that I might pay very close attention. I used the water-soluble oil inks again (love!) cut with a little crisco. I know many people in high places are probably frowning upon this, but it just works so well! The ink + crisco has great body and stays perfectly open while I'm printing. For burnishing I used a Japanese baren and bone folder combo - the baren first for a broad even impression, next the bone folder to sharpen up the details. Next time I will have some photos of a print being pulled, or maybe even a video - that would be fun!

I am really happy with these prints, the finished product as well as the process. I can't wait to do more! To get a little back story on the text, and see more images of the print check out the listing on Etsy. I'm off to call mi madre. Happy Mother's Day all!

more proofs...

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Another work in progress. One day soon there will be completely finished products. I promise. :D

process

 

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A little practice, and the start of some prints for the shop!

Sometimes I have trouble finishing (or even starting) the projects I say I'll do. Not this time - I said I'd make these TacocaT stickers and so I made them dammit! Quite quickly too, I might add. AND!! I rocked this super rad smock while I printed. (i found it over in west seattle - so charming there! excellent smocks!) Now if only I could publish a blog post as promptly. :/

I played with a number of new tools and materials this time - an ink plate/bench hook, new water-soluble oil based printing inks, and transparent ink-jet sticker paper. A few months ago I splurged on the ink plate and oil based inks and I'm happy to have acquired both. I had been rolling out my inks on a kitchen plate, so the new ink plate practically felt like a miracle.

The oil based inks posed a new challenge, but I do like them better than the rubber based inks I was using before. Here's why -- I CAN WASH THEM OFF MY HANDS!!!! Really! Because they are water-soluble oil-based inks...hallelujah! Now, I don't know what this means about the actual chemical composition of the inks (I will do some research), but basically you get to clean them up with soap and water instead of solvents. So I'm happy. Maybe I'll even be able to wash them out of my rags? Cross your fingers. They come in a variety of sizes at Daniel Smith so I can afford to buy a few colors in smaller quantities (yay!!), and they are suitable for printing projects that don't involve the press, like woodblocks.

The challenge posed by the new ink was this -- its sticky, sneaky sticky. It seemed alright as I was rolling it out on the ink plate, looser even than the rubber ink -- but as I worked it onto the press it seemed drier and stickier prompting me to apply more and eventually I over inked the press. Tricky! I had a lot of this going on:

And when I say a lot I mean like, every single pull.  Towards the end of the run I blended some Crisco into the ink, which I'm sure is totally improper, but it seemed to help. (after all if setswell is just some kind of solid fat, why wouldn't crisco work?) It also took much longer to dry than the rubber based inks, about a week or even a little more. This could be a result of my over inking though, or maybe the addition of the Crisco. The transparent ink-jet paper went pretty well on the press, but I think its slightly strange texture could have contributed to the slow dry time as well. After I get some more practice in with this ink, I think I'm going to like it a lot.

The major downfall of this project was my own inattention to detail. As I over inked the press, ink also built up on the form and I lost a lot of detail in the print. You can see the thick layer of ink that built up along the bottom of the block in the pic above. About half the stickers I printed were ruined this way. :( I will know better next time.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that TacocaT is my friends' band. There's a link over on the right, you should check them out. Most certainly some of my favorite peeps. :D And also, Hermione helped.

First there is a mountain...

I did my first real image based print as a Christmas project, and oh did I learn things! (Pardon my digital camera, it hasn't felt like taking pictures lately. Its just not into that sort of thing anymore.) So, I started with a drawing and used that to carve a lino block:

I only used the one carved block, but did two color runs - the first black, then navy blue over the top. The black ink was your typical rubber based ink used with lead type and what not, the navy blue was a water based acrylic. Two very different inks. Interrestiinng, she says. I inked up the press as usual for the black run, but because of my acrylic paint/roller fiasco this summer I decided to skip the rollers on the blue run and just brayer the ink directly onto the block. Good idea I think. Here's the first run with black only:

 

Ink coverage for both runs was not so great. Not because of either ink, but just the press itself. I'm beginning to believe solid even coverage on large areas of color is impossible with the Kelsey, I've heard the stories. I suspect it has something to do with how the arm delivers pressure to the platen -- unevenly?? No amount of impression screwing was getting me anywhere. I tried brayering on a ton of ink which worked for a few pulls, but eventually there was just too much ink on my block. Prints were coming out goopy and sloppy so I had to clean the block off and start fresh. In fact there was so much ink on the block that the print would stick to it as I let the arm down. This actually came out in my favor as I was able to burnish the back of the print, improving coverage slightly.

For this type of print I think I prefer the lighter acrylic ink. It sure came out pretty on my tympan! Also I don't think I'll use the rubber based and water based in combo again. Can't really say why, just a hunch I suppose. I want to move towards printing more images like this and to do so successfully I think I'm going to need a different press... here we go! I'm thinking a larger flatbed for more even coverage and bigger prints! We'll see....

Punch Cards -- Night & Day

So I did a little print job for the tea shop -- loyalty punch cards. It took two attempts, the first totally wretched - the second totally rockin! I don't know what sort of bad vibes I had going on the first night, but it just seemed like nothing was working right. Prints were looking like this:

They were coming out with a ghosty faded spot that moved across the card! Before I realized the under-inked patch was moving I packed and re-packed the tympan with endless disappointment. I ended up over-inking to compensate, which was a problem in itself. Too much ink on the form and the card would get pulled right out of my makeshift guage pins, stick to the form and the rollers would ink over the back of it on their way down. Ugh.

Also! Part of my press literally disappeared!! The little pin? screw? wire? spring? (how should I know? its nowhere to be found!!) that held this action together (called the "ink table operating dog") is totally gone. I replaced it with a nail and some masking tape. High class, I know. I didn't noticed it had disappeared, so the ink plate didn't turn as I was printing and the ink built up unevenly on the rollers - compounding my inking/printing problems. Hooray!

I finally realized that the under-inked spot moving across my cards was caused by a spot on one of the rollers that wasn't inking up, probably because of some left-over crisco from the last time they were cleaned. The only fix was to clean the rollers and start fresh. It was already 11pm so I said Fuck it! and quit for the night.

My next day off I got up early and tried again. This time everything was glorious! I listened to an awesome Jefferson Airplane album (volunteers) while I printed and everything was just great. Prints were coming out like this:

Even and pretty! Yay! I don't even have much to say about it went so well, except that Jefferson Airplane and letterpress were made for each other. Oh, here's a shot of my make shift guage pins:

I made them out of sewing pins, just popped the heads off. I carved a full bleed on both the top and bottom of my lino block without thinking how I would hold the card in the press. (DUH!) So there are still two little white spots on the bottom of each card where the wave border didn't print because of the pins. Oh well. That was more of a blow on night one.

I also noticed on day two that lino blocks are slightly lower than lead type, so I stripped the masking tape wrap from my trucks and it really improved how well the block was inking.

Day two was a hit! I ended up printing about 500, that's quite a lot! Thanks Jefferson Airplane!

Here's another picture of the press looking pretty:

Shop Cards -- Runs 3 & 4

And done! After shelling out $25 for a can of yellow here are my cards:

  

I added the lightning bolt on the back accidentally at first, then I went with it and added the blog address last minute too. I'm happy with them. Printing the blog address was interesting, since it was just one line of type it made a killer impression. (a little too killer actually, it was embossing the opposite side.) I didn't feel like repacking tympan for this (???) but instead just adjusted the hand pressure of each of my pulls. It worked okay but next time I'll fiddle with the tympan for practice.

Shop Cards -- Runs 1 & 2

So the other night on a bit of a whim I printed the first project on my Kelsey -- cards for my soon-to-be etsy shop. (which will feature a handful of my art, craft, & printing endeavors.) Oh man, I had a good time. Maybe a little too good, had I not been so damn excited I probably would've taken a little more time to fuss with details like proper ink coverage. All the same, I think they turned out pretty well for a first try. My camera wasn't very into taking photos this night, apologies for the fuzz.



As you can see in the photos I did them in two runs: one for the lead type and one for the linocut, as the lino block was a bit wider than the type form. Typesetting is always a puzzle but even more so when you're working with letterpress hand-me-downs. The only word spacing I have is 10pt, 14pt, and 18pt so that dictated my type choices. Hence 3 faces of Old E on one card! Also, I don't have a single em quad! I was a bit worried that the masses of 3 & 4m's in the form would prove unstable during printing but it held together just fine. Horray! One more run to go and they'll be finished.