Dear Reader, We’re about to make something awesome together. In this book I’ll be sharing essential techniques and processes for creating visually captivating linoleum and rubber block prints. I’ve designed a series of projects to hone your skills and test your creativity, including some fun ways to salvage your mistakes and give mess ups a second life. This book is meant to inspire, encourage, and help you build the skill set you’ll need to bring every glorious idea you have to life. And now it’s time! Test the weight of the carving tool in your hand and feel the tingling sensation of possibilities. Listen for the kiss of the brayer as it rolls out the ink. Let some choice swear words slip in tandem with your V-gouge (hey, it happens to all of us). Make plenty of mistakes, stab yourself once or twice, learn your lessons, and then revel in your first perfect print. Pull something into existence by the force of your own will. There’s magic to be made here. Yours in inky solidarity, Emily Essential Tools And Materials In this chapter, you’ll learn about the basic materials needed to take you from bright idea to successful linocut print. Linocut printing is a form of relief printing, the process of pulling a print from a carved block, where the ink is deposited on the remaining (uncarved) areas of the block. One of my favorite things about relief printmaking is that you don’t need expensive equipment to make studio-quality prints, and most tools are relatively affordable. There are lots of brands of tools, papers, blocks, and inks to try, so research and experiment to find what works best for you. Block Print Magic: The Essential Guide to Designing, Carving, and Taking Your Artwork Further with Relief Printing Essential Techniques Though there are detailed directions for every project in this book, there are some essential practices that need tackling first. This chapter includes a refresher on some of the basic tenets of good design to help you plan your original compositions, and details different approaches to transferring images onto the carving block. You’ll also find tips on carving techniques, the primary steps for pulling a print, and instructions about how to register (or line up) a multicolored print. The Basics The projects in this chapter will take you on a tour of foundational concepts of the relief printing process. Here you’ll learn how to: Achieve a variety of textures through the manipulation of your tools;Make a three-color print with three separate blocks;Make a three-color print with a single block;Manipulate lines to render an object in three dimensions;Use collage and hand painting to embellish a print;Use text to print your own tiny book Targeted Techniques Exploration and experimentation are essential to artistic growth and are reliable routes to discovering your own voice. The following projects will help you stretch your creative muscles: using uncommon methods to alter paper, making a multi-color print with a single pull, and crossing disciplines with fiber arts to name a few. In this chapter, three contemporary printmakers will show us a wide variety of techniques from sweeping landscapes to divine color gradients to possibilities of print on textiles. Waste Not I’ve never been all that interested in perfection. The works of art that speak the loudest to my soul are always those in which the artist’s hand is clearly evident. I love to search for wayward marks, cracks, odd proportions, and strange color combinations in every piece I consume because, to me, the 'mistakes' are the fulcrums of magic in a given work of art. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of lovingly repairing broken ceramics with a special gold, silver, or platinum lacquer essentially highlighting a mistake and turning it into something sparkling and special. These final projects are exercises in letting go of failures and embracing the imperfect nature of print. Projects from Block Print Magic: The Essential Guide to Designing, Carving, and Taking Your Artwork Further with Relief Printing Texture Quilt Block The best way to get to know your carving tools and the magic of wielding them is to dive right in! This classic moonlight star quilt pattern provides the perfect visual structure for experimenting with mark making, textures, and values all in the same project. For this project, you will be attempting to use as many of your carving tools as possible to make as many different textures and values as possible. We won’t need to use any transfer techniques for this texture exploration, as we will be drawing directly onto the block. I recommend drawing the full design in pencil first, then going over your drawing with a permanent marker, so you can edit any mistakes. Reduction Cut Sunflowers In this project, we explore the reduction cut—a method of color printing in which you use the same block over and over, carving more away with each new layer of color. Flowers have been an enduring subject for artists, and their wide range of colors and shapes make them great for study when it comes to reduction cuts. An Important Note about Reduction Cut Prints With reduction prints you will only ever be able to do a single, limited-edition run. Because you use the same piece of substrate for each block, you essentially destroy the first block in order to make the second—and then destroy the second in order to make the third, and so on. Dress Up Sometimes when designing a new print, I want just a little pop of color to really make my composition shine. Such small areas of color rarely warrant their own block, so that’s when I like to apply color by hand. This project details how hand painting and collage can enhance an otherwise simple black ink print. Note: It’s generally best to use a sturdier, thicker paper as the 'support' paper, collaging thinner papers onto it. For this project, I printed on heavyweight tagboard and the collage elements are printed on a lighter, textured coral scrapbooking paper.
✔ Author(s): Emily Louise Howard
✔ Title: Block Print Magic: The Essential Guide to Designing, Carving, and Taking Your Artwork Further with Relief Printing
✔ Rating : 4.8 out of 5 base on (292 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1631596152
✔ ISBN-13: 9781631596155
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about Block Print Magic by Emily Louise Howard
Jillian Neel
I must confess, this book made me shed tears like never before. The themes of love, loss, and resilience struck a chord with my soul. It was an emotional journey I'm grateful to have taken.
Lucy Garraway
The author's ability to evoke a wide range of emotions through their words is truly remarkable. I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster throughout the entire book.
Virginia Savage
I'm already planning to reread this book. It's one of those stories that you can revisit again and again, discovering new layers of meaning each time.
