"Puzzle Print"

I finally finished a project that I've been working for a while. One of my friends, Hannah Phelps had been creating some beautiful woodblock prints using plates that she cut into pieces with a scroll saw. I wanted to see if I could do something similar using "easy cut' blocks and an X-acto knife.
I started off with a sketch of beach roses and a background of hills and sea.

I transferred  the image to a 6" x 9" piece of "easy cut" and outlined everything with a permanent marker. Using an X-acto knife, I tried to carefully cut out the flowers, and separated other sections of the block. You can see the first two layers will be light blue and yellow. I have the block firmly locked into a mat board frame with guidelines to help me line up the subsequent layers.

Here you can see the results of my progress.

I continued to cut away areas in the flowers, leaves, and background, and printed layers of pinks, blues, and greens. I used Akua inks and a lightweight block printing paper.

The block ready for the last layer of dark green ink...

And here is the finished print.

As this is a reduction print, I like the way the pinks stay pink, and the greens stay green. I did a regular reduction print of beach roses last year, and I found it difficult to choose the sequence of colors as there would be some areas of overlay using these complementary color tones. The hardest part of this process was maneuvering the inked flowers into the rest of the block each time I made a print. As an experiment trying this puzzle technique, I feel it was fairly successful. I ended up with 5 or 6 quality prints out of this edition of 20, and have a better idea of what to do, and what not to do next time.

Illustration Friday "Space"

Lost in space...

"Secret"

                   Only her diary knew the name of her secret crush!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

IF "shiny"

I've added a little color to the black and white version I posted yesterday. She looks pretty happy posing with her shiny trophy!

"Shiny" sketch for IF

Here's the b and w sketch I'm working on for this week's Illustration Friday post. Lots of road races going on, and I was thinking about the shiny trophy for the winner. Such a busy weekend, I'm a little behind on my posting. Hope to get the colored version done by tomorrow night.

Hurry!

On a hot summer day, you have to hurry to get your cone under control before it melts!

Today is definitely not a hot summer day! It's been pouring since the early am, and it feels raw and cool outside. I spent part of the day working at the local co-op gallery I belong to in town. The rain spoiled the town's scheduled "Old Home Day" celebration, and what we hoped would be a busy day at the gallery. Oh well, it is what it is---there will be better days ahead!