Look mom! My first lino block!

Hooray! I've completed my first successful linoleum block... and have printed with it! I'm pretty excited about that. I started another that was a much softer material and it was a disaster - crumbled all over the place. After my first struggle, I went back to the art shop and got a harder linoleum block and some finer tools to work with and everything came out as planned. I know the subject matter is a bit dull, but I have many occasions where I could use a stamp for the name of my little business, and now I have the tools to print it wherever my little heart desires!

I've been putting together some tags for our friends at Ohh, Boy! - and I've been working on a couple of new bags. These are my favorite ones yet!

Getting back into the swing of things...

I haven't been printing for a couple of years now. Transitioning from having a generous studio space at school (with all of the equipment I needed!) to a smaller studio at home has been a challenge. Until I figure out exactly how I am going to make the process of screen printing at home work, I figured I would learn another printmaking method that I could set up more easily. Today I stumbled upon Lizzy House's block printing tutorial! Perfect! I read up on the process a bit, and decided to give it a try...

I made my printing blocks out of some foam board and thin pieces of wood - just because I was looking for instant gratification. I chose a very simple pattern and used one block for each color. I did purchase a linoleum block, but I wanted to think through a more thoughtful design before I began carving into it!

I made a few mistakes. (Doh!) Still, I am really glad that I took the opportunity to play around with block printing a bit! There is a lot of potential with this technique. I think it could be used in conjunction with screen printing with some pretty interesting results...