Printmaking Class: Design and Print Your Own Cards

Cute image of two ornaments leaning on each other. The budding card artist plans to use the open space to individualize each one with glitter or names or whatever inspiration may come.

Not everyone wanted to do holiday cards. Great to see what they each came up with.

 The snow-covered birdhouse is a thank you note. This artist cut two blocks to create her design.

In this photo, you can see the printmaking block right in front.

I think these pictures give a good idea of the strong graphic quality that a block print will bring to an image.

An amazing time was had by all (especially the teacher.)

Today's Work

Today, I started from the above working in acrylic. And how got you there, you ask?? I began by toning an 11 x 14 canvas board with quinacridone red, then printed over with small hand cut block prints. I painted negatively with a mixture of phthalo turquoise, permanent green light and white to create the tree. Then I went back in to paint on the branches with more red.

Today, I added fruit and leaves cut from catalogue pages from around the turn of the last century, fixing them to the board with matte medium. I printed a funny little bird--one of my own blocks--and began to add color to the fruit and bird--hansa medium, phthalo blue and black were added to the rest of the palette. I went in with a black micron pen to create dark edges around elements in the painting.

There's a lot going on, but I'm pretty pleased with it. Oh, and I forgot--along the way the sky turned from turquoise to blue--sometimes, life is like that!

Birds on a Wire

Above is the first layer of midnight blue acrylic and prints on 12 x 16 (10 x 16?) canvas.


What I added yesterday--tentatively entitled Birds on a Wire.

Today I hope to make progress on commission work on slate and to add a gumball machine on the "piles" collage piece. Of course, what will happen once I actually get started is anyone's guess!

Why Young Mothers Feel Trapped

I have had such a fun, productive week creating art. This piece is one I have been cogitating on for a while-- waiting for the right time and place. It finally came together this week. I created the back ground by doing an underpainting in midnight blue (a mix of phthalo blue and black) on a piece of canvas cloth that I had coated with gesso.

Then I did a layer of small block prints in white and gray on the blue, and went back over it, hand painting in white, grays and red, highlighting or exaggerating shapes I liked.

I wanted to leave branches showing against the sky, so I used negative painting in a warm blue mixed with titanium white and painted the sky around the branches, freehand.

I had found this great article in a Reader's Digest from around 1960 called Why Young Mothers Feel Trapped. I cut out a portion of the picture and the title in the shape of two little birds. I used some more of the very old catalog pages (see previous posts) from an ad which had in bold Boys and Girls and used it to make a nest. Here is the result. It is in the stage where I am watching and waiting to see whether it is done.



Here is a piece I finished today. It is also mixed media using acrylic paint and collage. I started with torn pieces of a reproduction of one of my acrylic paintings called Lights of Home. I cut small bird shapes from vintage papers and printed on the canvas and the birds with my hand-carved, small, shaped printmaking blocks.

Its title is not all I would wish, but will do for now-- Two Little Birds.


There's lots more to show and tell, but I will save it for later!