20121128

block printing across the universe

wow, so holy shit. has it been almost two years since i posted here? wild. umm, i have the internet at home again, so my online presence will certainly be markedly higher.

anyway, on to the good stuff!

some months ago, C. introduced me to carving linoleum and speedycut blocks, and i've been fascinated with it. i've been trying to carve a block a week recently, and i think i'm actually a little ahead of myself. yesterday i got a little irked at something trivial, so i busted out a set of french curves, made a bunch of semi-random marks on my block and started looking for shapes. I tend to prefer to work with abstracts, at least in the beginning stages. this is a graphite rubbing of the shapes i found.

i came to to think of the face that emerged as some weird raging tiki god. you can see how i emphasized those shapes in this rubbing. it kind of looks like he's angrily presenting someone with a disembodied ass, right?




anyway, today i spent some time printing. (for those who care about this kind of thing, this block is 5"x6" mounted linoleum. I used Dick Blick and Speedball Block Printing Inks.)


this is just the basic test print. i usually test my prints on construction paper. i like the absorbency of it and i have lots of colors to choose from. now that i can see how all the lines turned out, i start thinking of ways to make it interesting, playing around with tiling and overlapping the prints. I will also see if i have other blocks around that maybe i can work with as well.





 I'm a big fan of that star shape that appeared in the middle of this one.















   This one seemed to connect a little better, almost appearing as one solid print. I've been wanting something to use my new "whisper" and "scream" blocks so i decided to add them simply in the corners of this one.They are both 2x3 mounted Linoleum blocks. Maybe you noticed, but the paper i used has glitter embedded in it. pretty cool, huh?











Now that i have an idea of how things are going to fit together, i'll start getting a little fancier.


I call that one "Message From the Stars" because there's a secret message in an alien script hidden in there. Subliminal, dude.







This one is just a lot of crazy layering, so i didn't really title it. I found something appealing in it, though i can't seem to place my finger on it.










 This one is a more basic tiling, but at 11 inches per side, it's ideal for printing on an album cover, which C. pointed out for me. I rummaged through my record collection and settled on a Partridge Family LP. Don't ask. So i slit it open, and went searching for more blocks. I originally tried to print on the front cover, but it's pretty glossy and kept sliding around while i was trying to rub it on, so i settled on the inside of the back cover and put the now-silvery front cover aside for future use. This one's on Vellum Bristol paper though.






Those are the blocks i decided on. The square one at top is 2x2 mounted linoleum, the Maze on the bottom left is 5x8 unmounted linoleum, and the xFATHOMx Glyph is some weird-sized speedycut block that i can't find anymore. throw em all together with silver, black, blue, and red ink and this is what comes out.



I call it "sweetsweetrevenge" for no reason in particular. Now that's an evening well spent.



A note on the xFATHOMx glyph: It is a design based on the Japanese kanji for "Peace", but i kinda made it look like an F and added X-es on either side. I intend to use it in the majority of my prints, if in maybe subtler ways in the future.



Well, that's all for now. Keep an eye on the blog for more stuffs. Hooray internet!


-xFATHOMx