Buds Linocut

Posted on by under printing

I finally had a day off from working at the store today. Yay! So I got a little carving done on my linocut blocks which have been patiently waiting for me to get back to them.

This is the budding branch that I had started on. I decided to trim around the shape instead of leaving it a rectangle. I will have to print with this to see how it holds up before I carve the others. I just tried inking it up with a blue stamp pad to see how it worked. I didn’t have time to do a full printing session.

Here’s a very light print. I carved more out around the edges to have less of the extra lines. I like a bit of texture in the background but this seemed like too much. It is so nice to have a day to work on art again. I am looking forward to finishing two more of these blocks and then having a session of printing.

Thanks for stopping by and have a nice weekend.

Wild Rose

Posted on by under painting, sketch book

I am still working 7 days per week at the store so my creative time is severely diminished. But I am still taking a few minutes each day to do something. It’s easy when life gets in the way to not take any creative time for yourself, but I find that you can squeeze a few creative minutes into each day. It keeps me sane 🙂

I have been seeing a lot of wild roses on my morning walks in the woods so here’s a watercolor and colored pencil representation. I considered doing more with the background but decided to leave it as is.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Lupine

Posted on by under painting, sketch book

I haven’t had time to do much artwork this week. I have been working every day at the store due to employee issues. The joys of being a small business owner.

I did create a small watercolor painting in my sketch book of a lupine. These are blooming now up in the woods. Hopefully, I will be back to my regular schedule by the end of next week.

Second Layer of Lino Block Printing

Posted on by under printing

I carved the rest of the four lino blocks I was working on. These are for the second layer of printing.

I started with printing this one. I should have printed each block with white and then moved on to other colors but I didn’t do that. I like the white over the darker ink colors.

Then I moved on to this block. Once I put in the red to make orange with the ink, that was about all I could do without cleaning everything off.

Here’s the third design, as you can see the orange was about it. I made it darker and lighter but it didn’t change the end result much.

This is the last design based on rings in tree stumps. The bottom left one is printed over a piece of watercolor paper that has a light wash. I wanted to see how that would look as a background. The rest of the paper I used is printmaking paper. It is much smoother than the watercolor paper and gives a better print.

Now I need to do some more carving for the next layer of printing. I will probably print these in black over top what is already printed.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend.

Lino Carving, Fireweed and Robin’s Nest

Posted on by under printing, sketch book

I am working on some new lino prints. I want to layer several designs on top of each other. I have printed a few plain backgrounds and I’m now working on the second layer lino blocks.

These are three of the designs for the second layer. I have several more designs. Then I have created the designs that will be printed on top of these prints. I still have a lot of carving to do before I can show you any prints.

Here’s a watercolor of a fireweed plant. I thought I would do something for the background but I think I will just do another one with a background. This is done in watercolor.

And we had these baby robins up under our gutter on the back of the house. They have flown away now. When I saw the size of the babies, I couldn’t believe they even fit in the nest.