cut 2

cut 2: leaves (oak)

background

For my second cut I wanted to work a little on creating tone/shading, so I was looking for kind of a three-color image (black, white, gray). I also was thinking a lot about negative space. It's the time of year when trails are covered in fallen leaves, and while trail running I've been noticing how a bed of oak leaves has a lot of nice edges that would be fun to carve. I took a photo while on a run, where I hoped to catch a good amount of shadow:

I love the idea of losing myself in carving every detail of this, but that is not reality, as I just don't know how to create all those different tones. For this carve I initially tried to incorporate some details of the "background" leaves, but I wasn't happy with any of it, so I just stuck with three "foreground" leaves, each with some shading.

I'm using a Blick brand rubber block, I think it's meant to be a cheaper alternative to speedy-carve. It's gray.

outcome

yyyyiiiikkkesss this did not go well. I don't even have a photo to share.

Basically, I am really heavy handed with my roller, and I couldn't figure out the correct amount of ink or pressure to apply when inking. Any detail I carved was ruined by the third print, when I'd flooded the crevices.

I also learned that the entry-level Speedball water-based inks are impossible to work with. They dry out quickly...which is at least partially I think why I was so heavy-handed with it.

things I learned along the way

carving

• I tried to apply an acrylic wash to the block before carving. The tube of acrylic paint I used was very old, and I also think I made it to watery. I'll try again with less water, and a newer tube.
  • It left the block streaky. Will this matter? Let's find out.
    • no, the streaks didn't show up in the print. The shitty block texture did though!
  • Also, I realized I forgot to sand the block down a bit before painting. I'm not sure how much of a difference this would have made with a rubbery blick block.
• I initially thought I could mark the printout directly with pencil to avoid having to use tracing paper. I marked the outline of the block on the printout, but trimming the paper to size was more helpful than just an ink outline. Then I discovered that I couldn't see the pencil marks on the printout, so I had to scrap this approach and go with tracing paper.
• It was wayyyyy easier to trace over the printout than over the ipad screen, like I tried in cut 1. But still kind of difficult.
• I think next time I'm going to try carbon paper and tracing on the original printout with a colored ball-point pen.
• The block is not a perfect square! Not off by more than 1/16" in one direction, but it was noticeable after I'd trimmed the papers.
• After tracing on tracing paper, and rubbing on the block, it was kind of blurry and not great. I went over the lines on the block with a pen, but it was blurry enough that I had to use the original printout as reference for a good amount. (And since it was mirrored, it was confusing at times.) I'm not sure if the blurry was related to covering the block with an acrylic wash? I don't think so, I think it's just that the paper kind of wiggles as I'm rubbing it onto the block.
• I didn't include all the tone details that I did on the ipad. I included the areas that will be shaded, but I didn't copy the shading lines, because it seemed like a ridiculous amount of effort. Instead I plan to make that up on the fly, as I'm carving. Yolo.
  • After a few lines of "tone" carved, I think I like this approach so far. One smart thing might be to mark the pattern/direction of the tone marks on the printout, so that I don't have to figure it out on the block.
• The texture of the Blick block for carving is similar to speedy carve, I don't think I'm good enough yet to notice the difference. One thing that is nice about this Blick block is that it isn't a solid color all the way through - there is a gray "top" to it, but most of the under-block is white. So I can see how deep I've cut, which is really nice actually.
• I'm still trying to figure out how to do sharp corners. I always end up a little short or a little long, and then with a little wiggle/gouge right at the corner. I think it just takes practice, but I might explore using an exacto knife to shape the corners better before gouging them.
• I'm not sure if I'm making things up or this is expected, but I have found that I want to strop the tiny V blade after each carving session (which lasts about an hour). It seems to help, I think, but again I'm not sure if I'm good enough to notice when I'm just making things up or getting sloppy with my technique.

printing

• eek, this blick block has a horribly uneven textured surface, and it shows up in every print. I guess this is the reason for the way-cheaper price.
• it also has sometimes-tapered edges, which are hard to print consistently.
• there seems to be a thin line between too much ink and too little ink. Too much saturates the crevices; too little leaves a lot of bare/sketchy spots.
• I get about one or two prints before the tiny crevices have saturated with ink and I want to wash it and start over. Is this normal?
• my homemade jig with tape seemed to work pretty well. Looking forward to ternes-burton pins/tabs, though.
• taping the block to the mat where I'm printing makes a huge difference.
• I tried rolling a water bottle (both aluminum and plastic) over the paper instead of rubbing by hand with a wooden spoon, but it didn't catch the inconsistently tapered edges, and I ended up having to rub those anyway. I also don't think it did a good job of consistently soaking up ink.
• I used "printmaking" paper this time. I think it was probably not much different than the mixed media paper I used in cut 1.
• I do think the block from cut 1 printed way more consistently and evenly than this blick block. I don't think I'll use a blick rubber block again.
• oops! I forgot that my roller wasn't wide enough to cover my entire block, and I tried to mess around with a gradient on one variation, but ended up having to totally hack it because the roller didn't fully cover.
• do I need to cut deeper on all these little shading marks? I don't think I could if I wanted to. I am hopeful this will be solved with a true lino block.