New Lino Cut - Submission for Cloth Paper Scissors

I am so excited about the current Reader's Challenge for Cloth Paper Scissors!  It's the Carve It Up! Challenge and you can read all about it here.  To sum it up, you can use any carving material you wish and make a stamp that is 6"x6" or smaller, make a print, and mail it to their offices.  I decided to use linoleum for my carving material so I can also offer prints of the image as freebies in my shop.  I like it because it is firm and durable, and I can readily find it already mounted to a board. 

Here are the sketches I prepared for my carving.  The smaller one is the original, and the larger one I resized with my all-in-one printer and did a bit more doodling on.  The sketch is actually a reverse image of my original pencil sketch.  You have to remember that when you print it your image will be a mirrored image of what you carve. 

Once I had my basic sketch the size I wanted it, I used carbon paper to transfer it to my linoleum.  I use a Staedtler carving tool in size 1V to carve more detailed cuts, and a larger V tool I got in a wood carving kit at WalMart to do the larger cuts. 

Here is a picture of the carved linoleum.

I did a test run of prints, but I think I will do another run before I select my favorite print to send off to the Cloth Paper Scissors offices.  Here is the first run of prints.

Keep an eye out for my post of the second run because I will be giving away four of these prints!  Until then, here is a closeup of the print.  It is a 4"x6" image on a piece of 5"x7" drawing paper.