Around My Studio

Working on some prints from my lino cuts.  I may do a show soon.  It's hard to get enough stock made to do a show when I have two little ones under my feet for most of the day.  But maybe......

Here are the prints.  I laid both of my linos out on a towel and printed them at the same time.

 Here they are cut and ready to package.

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.







Lino Cut Owl

With sales slowing down to a hault in my hubby's Etsy shop, JoonBuggy, I decided to give buyers an incentive to purchase books from our shop.  I will soon be introducing a print of my owl lino cut as a freebie to those who buy any book from his shop. 

This is the sketch I started with.  I used carbon paper to transfer the drawing to the lino surface.  I had to stop when I was half done and start over again because I forgot to transfer the reverse image to the carving surface and I did not like this guy as well in reverse.

Here is the lino halfway through the carving process.

I finished the carving and did a test print, but I really need a good brayer.  I have spots in each print that have less ink, and I also have places where the ink fills the carved lines.  This is all because the brayer I am using is a cheap plastic brayer that is very uneven.  It even has a few indentions in it.  Yikes.  I also forgot to sand the protective coating off the linoleum before I got started which causes the ink to kinda pool up on the surface.  Next time I will make sure to do more research before starting a project with an unfamiliar technique!

Here is the finished carving and a (sorry excuse for a) test print.

I believe I can make this work with a good brayer.  If not I will recarve this cute guy again.  Live and learn, right?