Printing at home on Mother's Day

It was quiet and calm on Mother's Day at my house and I spent most of the afternoon experimenting with my AquaLina printing inks. I have discovered that they aren't ideal for creating "Artists books" using the rollings method. I think they may need the pressure of a press to be particularly good. However I did spend some time playing with colours etc and not having the distraction and stress of trying to share space with other people.

This is a print using my AquaLine inks. This is the best print so far, in my opinion. Printed 2 days after the previous prints, you can see how the black oil based ink has come through, even though the block was washed fairly throughly. With the marks from the simple barren I have used, and a colour I mixed up and on a very lightweight Japanese paper, I am very pleased with this print.





I went on to do some rolling using various items such as this lino block a couple of collographs and some leaves and even oats.


This is a rolling of the above lino block (obviously). What many of these rollings made apparent for me was the need for a bigger roller. I only have the basic 6" soft speedball roller. My son, who turned 16 this week really likes this particular print however. He creates a lot of his own artwork with stencils. I think he likes the stencil like quality of this.
This print has given me an idea for a major painting work, probably using stencils. I need to get him to pose in the same way.





A simple rolling of leaves on a stem.


The same leaves with oats scattered around.


The collograph was rolled 1st and then I removed the collograph & went over it with the oats.








The following prints were made from two collographs I created as backgrounds. I was hoping to use the press at Helen's to experiment with them but it simply wasn't possible. I did a quick drawing of some tree shapes and then peeled away the tree shapes from the cardboard. I used the tree shapes and glued them on to some other cardboard and coated them both with shellac.


This print in two colours is from the block that was carved, obviously. I did the same block only moved very slightly.


This print in two colours if from both blocks. The first block was printed in the blue and the raised block in purple.


In this print I reversed the colours and which block was printed first. I like that I am learning all sorts of things by experimenting like this. It is giving me ideas that I would like to visit in the not too distant future. I am thinking of doing printmaking with Curtin through OUA in the next SP.

My experiments aren't great art but I am learning and thats what I'm enjoying.

And now that I've caught up on my printmaking I need to start on some of my other subjects like Sculpture - assemblage. Bleurg!