Blockhead

My Christmas cards started a fire. I've been working on various block prints this month, and this week, I made these, for assembly into cards:

and these:

I am so pleased with both of them and with the whole printing process. It's so different from painting, and I love it just as much, in a very different way.

I've been using thinned acrylic paint instead of inks, but today I went to Jerry's Artarama to get more rubber blocks and lino blocks to carve, and decided to try some water-soluble printing inks. This will be my first lino carving, too; I've been using Speedy-Stamp rubber sheets. I do believe the lino will be better for letters, as the rubber is so squishy that it smears the paint on smaller details (I think it would have been better if the paint were thinner, too). But the rubber is easier to carve away and I think the lino will be easier to carve into, so I expect to use them for different purposes.

I've been inspired lately by this book:

Handmade Prints

by Anne Desmet and Jim Anderson.

It's full of beautiful examples, many of which are simply stunning. It explains everything neatly and concisely, in a straightforward, matter-of-fact style, while not talking down to the reader (so many books these days assume the reader is either already an expert or in fifth grade) . And the authors make even the more complicated printing methods seem entirely possible and doable, and fun, to boot. Which is really why I like printing so much in the first place.

One thing down...

I was hoping to catch up on some work this week, but the bronchitis is back and has bowled me over (how's that for alliteration?), so it's back to sleep it off for me. However, I did finish one commission this week for 40 Christmas cards, and I am quite pleased with them.

Up on the clothesline to dry:

I carved myself a new logo stamp (I like the irregular woodblock feel):

And added some aqua trim:


Tied them up, nice and pretty with the only ribbon I could find (my huge bag of ribbons has gone missing in the move back into the office. How this is possible, I do not know. Our house is not big):


Fortunately, I had some raffia too:


And there you have it. I'll be taking the package to the post office this afternoon. I am very pleased with that tag -- it was a spur-of-the-moment creation and I like it so much I am going to use the same design for new business cards.

I hope that I'll be able to get fully back into the swing of things by the end of this week. I'm itching to get back to work and I have two more commissions waiting in the wings (the commissioners of which have been very patient, and I thank them profusely).