. Celestina Carmen: 1st Try At Block Printing

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

1st Try At Block Printing




Here is my first try at block printing. As you can see from above, I need to go back and re-carve some areas.


Materials: Speedball's rubber block, carving tools, soft brayer, pencil, image, ink




Image Transfer: Traced the image with a #2 pencil then rubbed it on the rubber block. It creates a light transfer. Then I traced the image with a sharpie, which I read about somewhere on the internet. Bad idea! The black ink transferred onto my final image (you can see it in the 1st pic).






I first carved around the image with a #1. Used the #5 for the bulk of the carving. Followed by #2 for some detailing around the image.


I didn't have any block printing ink. I tried 2 different inks I had on hand:



  1. Speedball screenprinting ink: Didn't get good coverage. Looked like i under inked.

  2. Oil paint with block printing medium: Not a smooth enough transfer for me.

Both were on the thin side for paper. Next time I make it out to the store I'll pick up some block printing ink. Is their anything else I can use?

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3 comments:

Sherrin said...

great image Tina!

I've always just used block printing ink, or if I've block printed on fabric, I've used regular screen ink.

Jesse said...

You could use acrylic paint, putting it on with a foam roller (because it's too thin for an ordinary hard roller). I've used oil paint without any block printing medium, with good results. It's sometimes useful to try different papers as well, as they all print differently, and what you're really looking for is a good match between paper and ink.

Tina said...

Thanks for all the advice. I can't wait to try again.

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