Monday, October 3, 2011

Printing Again

Prionus Californicus keyblock proof

I still don't have a dedicated work space.....I'm working out of a spare bedroom...but I got my keyblock carved and I was I was itching to print again. I found a small jar into which I had thrown a broken up sumi stick in December? so I poured off the surface water and it seemed good to go after a good stirring.

Turns out Arborio rice will work for rice paste and the kitchen table, once the kids are in school, will too.

I dashed off 6 copies of my keyblock for my small bug print. This is the hanshita, it is printed off the keyblock including the kento marks and will be pasted face down, one for each color.
So far it has two 2.5" X 3.5" prints on it printing side by side...
it will have color blocks too and I'm trying now to figure out how to combine the colors to get both printed simultaneously.

Due date for 100 prints is Nov 1.
I'll need to go back in and open up the "O" of "prionus" and the second set of legs are too long but I think I'll leave that alone.

3 comments:

  1. Nice teeny tiny carving. I looked up Prionus Californicus. Kind of a bad boy bug! What led you to depict it?

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  2. Long ago, one of my first exposures to woodblock prints were a collection of Russian and Indian matchbooks/covers. This was an attempt to loosely imitate those early prints.

    It's supposed to be a slightly ironic look and reference to what I (We) do.

    In the US it is a common destructive pest/insect of cherry trees and cherry lumber. The larvae burrow into the wood leaving large tunnels and burrows in the heartwood and weakening the tree and rendering the wood useless.....

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