Block Printing

Been wanting to learn this for a while.

And the time was right finally. 

I saw a post on instagram of an artist friend. She posted her latest block print and it inspired me. "That's it I thought, I wanted to print," and the next day after extensive online research of the tools I would need, I was off to get them. Luckily my mum had taken up carving leather back in the day and so she had all the carving tools I needed. 

After many youTube videos, I was like, pfff, easy! I can do this. And not sure why but as I drove home with my mum that evening, I had that image of the dancing lady stuck in my mind. A voluptuous woman dancing infront of the full moon. And there is something so satisfying when you are able to reproduce the image in your mind on paper. So, I drew her, but then realised I had not got carbon paper to trace it onto my lino block. So, I scribbled on the back with a lead pencil only to realise that my lino block was black!!!

I wandered the house thinking "Damn!I really wanted to carve!..."

Thought to myself, let me pick dad's brain...he normally is full of ideas. It took forever trying to explain to him what I was doing! ha ha...Mum had the same idea I had and also her contribution was "why did you buy a dark block?" Hmm...

Finally I thought, chalk! and I repeated the same process that I did with pencil but with white chalk and voila! It worked!

I traced my image onto my block and started carving.

A few nicks and cuts later, it was all carved out. And I left the printing for the other day. 

I got some fabric ink, Textil Plus and spread it on a sheet of glass and rolled my rubber brayer in it as seen on the videos and then onto my block. As advised, I first print on paper and it was terrible. Realised that it was not as easy as it seemed! A few attempts later and after sitting on my block while the fabric absorbed the ink, I had a semi-decent print on fabric. However, I was so eager to print, I skipped the process of rinsing the fabric SO next attempt will be done "properly".

I quite like my design. I went back and recarved my block. Some photos below. And hopefully new attempts to be shared soon!