Owl

I get to create my first letterpress print soon! I've always wanted to do both letterpress and screen printing, but somehow never have. My brother and sister-in-law Peter and Heather Bergman, are both letterpress printers and I'm going to visit to make a set of 5x7 linocuts with handset type in a couple of weeks! If you get a chance, read about The Letterpress Depot, a public printing and workshop space they are helping to set up in Englewood, Colorado.

I need to carve the image for my 2 color print on type-high blocks so they will be the same height as the hand set metal type. I haven't gotten the blocks in the mail yet, but I have the drawing done and carving the image shouldn't take long.

I took this sketchbook page from my 100 Animals project as a starting point. I love the quote, but I wanted to use my own words.

This is what I came up with. I'm going to use black and silver ink on light blue paper. I'm so excited! I'll have photos to show later and some prints to give away. Stay tuned!

Progress

This may be the most detailed large linocut I've ever done. I was nervous about tackling it all along, so I guess it's good I'm doing it early in the process of making this book. But it's taking forever! I also spent a chunk of time on an even larger project that is still in the early stages. I'll let you know about that as it gets farther along.

Below I'll share progress photos so at least you can see I've been doing something!

 First I take the drawing on paper and redraw it onto tracing paper.

Then I lay the tracing paper upside down on the block, rub the back with something hard, and transfer the lines. But the graphite doesn't stick that well, so I redraw all the lines on the block again so they will be visible no matter how many times my arm rubs over them while I'm carving.

 The drawing on the block and ready to carve!

 A detail of the girl and dog at the creek.

A detail of the tiny playground. Can you find it on the full drawing on the block?!

If you'd like to see more about this book I'm creating, you can check out the other blog on my website called Our Home. And you can subscribe for email updates over there!