Wow -- it has been a l-o-n-g two weeks since our last relief printmaking class -- it felt really good to get back to class tonight at Art & Ideas Gallery!
During the time off I found a lot of images within the "automatic" drawings in my sketch book. I traced them onto tracing paper and brought a number of them with me tonight.
Tonight we started a 2-class project of two color printing...although as Shaqe pointed out, it is actually three colors including the white areas. We selected a drawing and traced the drawing and then filled in parts of it with two colors of magic marker, leaving another part of it white. Then we transferred the part that needed to be carved out (left as white) onto the carving material of our choice. I chose the harder surfaced Blick Golden-cut and Carla chose the softer surfaced E-Z-cut.
I forgot my camera at home but luckily Carla had hers with her, and let me borrow it to take some photos. Then she sent me the photos in an email. Thanks, Carla!
This is my traced drawing, in reverse, on the tracing paper...with the charcoal smudge on the underneath for transferring to the carving material. I used a red ballpoint pen to trace over the lines to transfer the charcoal image.
This is the color combo I chose after trying out several different variations of red/black/white areas.
This is the image transferred to the carving material with the charcoal. I went over the lines with a thin Sharpie marker so that I wouldn't rub off the charcoal guidelines.
Now I will carve out the areas that will remain white in the final print. I started with the smallest blade and did an outline as close to the line as possible.
Then I used the #2 blade to take out a larger amount of material. I prefer the #1 and #2 blades.
That took most of the class time. Next week we will do some printing.
The stuff I carved out.
Some of the stuff that Carla carved out of her block. She took the photo because she saw a face in it.
Carla snapped this shot of Shaqe Kalaj answering one of my million questions. Shaqe really is a remarkable teaching artist. And she is incredibly patient.
Thanks again, Carla for the use of your camera!
AND for emailing me the photos before my deadline!!!
Tonight Shaqe also brought in her electric wood carving tools so that we could try them out and see the difference between linoleum carving and wood carving. In a previous class we tried Shaqe's hand tools on Baltic birch. Tonight we tried the two electric tools with different bits in a harder birch plywood. There was quite a difference.
I am not sure if I will get into carving wood blocks, but I sure do enjoy the linoleum. And I really appreciate Shaqe's hands-on technique of showing us various carving methods. I am very glad for the opportunity to get to try things out with someone who is so skilled in that medium.
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