Sea Postcards: Part 3

The Finale- for now.

Well, I am now done with these postcards. I'd like to make a few more, but I'm very happy with the three I've made and so it's time to take a break from them.

AND, 14 prints took me 2 1/3 hours! I take pride in that because to add the color you have to ink it in black, clean off the area you want colored, ink the color, wipe that down to be ready to print, touch up black areas. Whew. It takes some time.

Globe Trotter

I went back to my woodblock and decided I need a green globe print...lovee this green btw. :)

Sea Postcards: Part 2

Pacific Ocean Seahorse

Decided to add some color, just to see how it looked. I like it, but I also like the simplicity of all black, so I printed both. 

Next up: Atlantic Ocean Sea Turtle!

Sea Postcards: Part 1

The Indian Ocean

Manatee

:)

So this was my first time using copper:

The first thing I did was have my image on tracing paper, then used Hard Ground liquid to coat my plate (the black stuff), and then pressed my tracing paper into it for it to transfer.

Then I used my little etching tool and went to work on just barely getting the hard ground scraped off to show what I wanted to etch.

 Then into the acid bath my little manatee went, and 20 minutes later he was almost ready!

Since he was properly etched, I took off the hard ground and he was ready to be inked up and printed!

This first one has more grays in the background and the manatee, which give it a little more depth

And this one is mostly wiped away so that only the etched areas got ink.

I'm really happy with how they turned out! I definitely have more to print before 

I get it right for an edition.

Apprenticeship?

I would kill to meet and work with this man:

This is a link to his video of making the piece- it's lovely:

http://www.petercrawley.co.uk/illustrations/wallpaperani/

Round two for the day

I've gotten a little behind so I'm trying to catch up a bit!

I just finished another etching, this one has taken me a good deal of time just because my first attempt wasn't successful.

I wanted to try linoleum, so I had the image down and was carving away but it was SO tough! The material was dry and hardened and made it almost impossible to cut smoothly.

I finally had to give up after several cuts from my lino tools and not enough time to get the project completed before I started another one.

So, I chose Sintra, the same material I used for the tentacle porthole, and managed to get a very quick and a little too rough of a print made.

It's easy to wipe too much ink off before it gets printed and that's my problem with the rope in this one.

My first attempt at stationery!

These weren't my original ideas for what I wanted to do, but I didn't have the time or the resources I needed at the time to get it done. SO, these were pretty improvised but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and I'm hoping to make a little money from them!

I frist made a stamp, which was really fun and easy:

And then I had already decided on the chipboard paper on the left and the heavy cardstock on the right to stamp onto. I got some clearance envelopes from Paper Source that were really nice textures and colors and paired them up!

I definitely plan on making more and having some text next time! (maybe Holiday cards?) 

Back to it!

I haven't forgotten the plane photos!

This one is actually from about 2 months ago....I was just busy posting new art that I kept leaving the poor guy out!

I went to Phoenix last weekend, and while downtown, I got some fun shots of lots of planes heading toward the nice Phoenix airport:

I always love getting two in a shot!

And of course making them look small...or making light posts look quite large

Warming filters are nice and fancy too

And then you just got a b&w of a plane

Going to Belgium.

http://www.pantonehotel.com/en/pictures

Just amazing.

See it all

Here is ma lovely globe woodcut with prints!

I love this design, but I think I might be carving out the outside so that none of that is inked.

But here is what I have:

Keep 'em comin'

Today I wanted to go in a different route entirely- I never really do flowers and stuff, but I've started getting more interested in them. I've had LOTUS FLOWER scrawled in my sketchbook throughout the pages, but until now, never did anything with it.

So.

This was really cool because it's about a 2 1/2x 7" piece of mdf and I started the chevron pattern, decided to add the flower, and then wanted it to be simple and kinda different on the top.

I loveee the textures that come out of woodcuts; they're very raw but beautiful and powerful.

This time I put some black gesso on top of my sharpied drawing so that I could see my cuts more clearly. Helped a ton.

I keep running out of time and having to leave right after I start printing, so these still need some sanding work and definitely color, but for the most part I'm really pleased and think it came out well. :)