Carved Christmas Cards

I've been making personal Christmas cards for around 10 years and I've never grown weary of it. Shortly after Halloween I relish the time I have to start playing with ideas and gathering material. It's interesting to see how my style and family has evolved over the years. Take a look at past years over here.

This year I thought I'd try something completely different and carve our portraits. I picked up some Speedy Easy carve lino and used my slightly neglected carving tools. For the text I used a couple of erasers and tried out a variety of colours.

I had never carved a portrait before this attempt. While I was really excited to give it a try, I was also slightly terrified that I would muck it up. Considering this is my first go at it, I'm happy with what I accomplished. I think the carving of my daughters turned out the best but I wish I'd given myself a bit more time on mine and my husband's portrait. In the new year I'd like to continue with carving to work on my technique and try different materials and paper.

While I was in a carving mood, I also carved a pine cone into an eraser and created a set of cards for my mail art friends. Two small pine cones printed in white on brown card stock with a cream insert and a stamped holiday message.

Two pine cones on the front.

A cream card and stamped greeting on the inside.

 Do you make personalized cards each year? If so, share a link, I'd love to see them.

... J

Eraser Stamps

After completing my first round of cork stamps I was eager to try something else. I hit up my local dollar store and found a pack of rectangular erasers. They weren't as large as I had hoped I would find, but it's a small town dollar store and I'll take what I can get.

The first stamp I carved was wheat! Very appropriate for this prairie girl.

I love the look of the layered colours and yellow and black.

What's next? I have a few more ideas for cork and eraser stamps and I've been playing with creating cards and patterns with those stamps. I think my next step will be to invest in a batch of soft lino, more ink pads, and paper.

I have carving-printing-stamp fever!

... J

Printmaking - The College Years

I attended a 3-year design program in Alberta. The first year helped develop a strong foundation for colour theory and design fundamentals while also allowing us to experiment with fine arts. The last two years were spent trying to excel at the software, hone our design skills and work with other mediums. One of my favourite classes was printmaking. It allowed me to work with a fantastic professor who inspired us to play with the mediums, tell stories through our art and push our comfort zone a little.

Since graduating over 10 years ago, I haven't done any printmaking. I've started a few things here and there and never really finished them. Now I'm excited to get back into it. I have been playing with inexpensive material for stamps such as cork and erasers for now and plan on progressing to lino and perhaps woodcut.

Thought I'd share a bit of my college work with you starting with Woodcuts:

I remember really enjoying woodcuts. The ideas, drawing and process came to me pretty easily. I know I liked thick lines, rough cuts and some wood grain showing. There was also something satisfying about carving the block and tossing the mess on the floor (to vacuum up later) while watching TV.

Lithography:

This process was harder for me to fine tune. It takes a lot of work to have a level, smooth stone and there's not a lot of room for fixing mistakes. Going through my work I had a few other prints, but they weren't as strong as these two.

Intaglio:

This was also a tricky one for me but perhaps because it came with less physical labour than lithography, I didn't mind taking a while to get used to it and figure it out.

The faces were omitted on purpose on the top print. I remember missing my home town friends desperately at that point and feeling like they were disappearing. Remember, this was before email caught on and WAY before Skype.

I really loved being able to go back into an artist's proof with watercolour, as I did with the last piece.


There are a few other pieces and perhaps I'll post them another day. I've been feeling nostalgic for the time in the printmaking studio and definitely the access to free supplies and large presses. It's sparked a keen interest to work with printmaking again and I'll get there, slowly, but surely.

... J

Cork Stamps

I'd like to get back into some form of printmaking. I haven't done any since my college years and that would be over 10 years ago... yikes! I'm hesitant to run out and buy a bunch of material for a few reasons.

1) I have so many other materials I neglected for a long time that have resurfaced now that I have my own studio and time to experiment.

2) I freely admit to being on the the cheap side of thrifty and want to conserve money for the many other projects we have on the go here.

3) I'd like to research and plan out what to do/make before I invest. I've been bookmarking sites and listening to what others have to say about materials, brands & techniques for now.

A few months ago I read about Kimi Kobashi's mail art exchange in which she created a stamp out of a wine cork. It sounded like the perfect way to play with custom printmaking in an inexpensive way. As luck would have it, we usually have an, uh, ample supply of wine corks with renewing resources. (Read: we often love a nice glass of red wine.)

I've created four stamps so far with plans for more. I've been dabbling with techniques in my sketchbook and added some stamps into a larger piece I'm working on.

I love the rough texture they produce. I also love that if I muck it up I can always grab another one and begin carving again without feeling badly for wasting expensive material.

 

While I'm in the mood to reminisce about my college years and printmaking, perhaps I'll dig out some work and post it. Stay tuned...

... J