Let's Ride! Block Print Bicycle Artwork

Last year we finished our basement and moved our TV downstairs. Since then, there's been this really big blank space on the wall in our living room and I'm happy to announce... we filled it! (Oh homeownership... the little things we get psyched for... and also take an ENTIRE YEAR to do...)

Also note, Kevin made an awesome cabinet out of an old pinball cabinet... but that's another story. We used CVS to print a 36x24" canvas with a block print Kevin designed a few years back. They were having a 50 percent off sale so it ended up being about $50. I was relieved that the overall quality was great! It turned out a little darker than expected (it's navy in person, see original below).

Above is the original linoleum carving and the print that I scanned. I used Photoshop to enlarge, tidy and change the color to blue. Here's the image I uploaded:

Another successful block printing project complete!

Here comes the snow and block printing (unrelated thoughts)

We're expecting some snow in D.C. which kind of stinks because 1. I dislike snow and 2. I was supposed to go to NYC on Wednesday... so we'll see how that goes. But, I've been waiting for an appropriate weather system to come through to finally share this:

Another technique from Pattern Camp applied to a painting I did back in 2010 during D.C.'s famed Snowpocalypse.

In addition, next weekend I'm taking Jen Hewett's Design, Carve, Print online class to learn more about hand printing fabrics. I've been going through all our previous forays in to block printing and found this fun bike Kevin had made. So I whipped that up into a repeat digitally:

For as much as I dislike snow, I'm actually working on another series of snow related patterns (go figure) so come back for that and for the results of our block printing efforts! Happy snow shoveling!

Block Printing Take One

As previously noted, I recently purchased some supplies to try out linoleum block printing. Let me tell you, I'm more of an instant gratification person so block printing seemed like a good alternative to screen printing. Not that screen printing is necessarily hard... but there's lots of steps... and waiting. I have no patience for those things. Linoleum block printing basically has three steps: 1. carve 2. ink 3. press and DONE! The carving was the hardest part and ended in me stabbing my fingers with the pokey-carvey-tool (technical term) more than I care to admit.

So here's what I made...

This was the basic block and the first attempt. After this I cleaned up the relief a bit with the carving-scraping-finger-poking tool. Then I started experimenting with some patterns and different color inks...

Kevin also got in on the block printing action. He was determined to make his first attempt as hipster as possible. He plans to make other prints including mustaches, birds and plaid shirts. Isn't his bike so cute?!

Have you ever tried block printing? Are you clumsy like me and stab you fingers 43 times? Would you admit it if you did? Stay tuned for part two when I scan these suckers in and play with them in Photoshop. Oooo. It's gonna be excitin' y'all.

Illustration Friday: Bicycle

Taking on a new weekly project: Illustration Friday. Since I don't have to blog for class anymore, this might motivate me to keep drawing every week. Yay!