Experimenting with lino prints

After being inspired by Chantal Vincent's gorgeous lino prints, I though I'd have a crack at doing some myself.  I vaguely remember doing this in art class at school and have the pillowslip to prove it.  I don't have all the equipment yet to do a really top notch job, but I'm fairly happy with these beginner's results.



 First design idea.

While cutting out the drangonfly design I decided to add a flower, stem and leaf as can be seen below.

At present I don't have any ink or rollers so have used stamp pads to print the image which has turned out mottled rather than a solid image.

Second design idea.

Original sketch of a Crested Tit.  Isn't he cute?

Drawing to transfer to lino.

Starting the carving process.

You can see I've made some mistakes here as the bird looks like he is hovering above the branch.  When I was carving, I carved away the part where his leg is attached to his body.  Oh well, next time.  :-)  All part of the learning process.  Here is what the final carving looks like after I've tried to clean off the stamp ink.

I got a bit slack here and didn't carve out all the left hand side surface.  Tch, tch. 

I've had oodles of fun trying this out.  The design and drawing process is definately the most enjoyable part for me at this stage.  Hopefully with time I can improve my carving skills for a neater image and aquire some more equipment to get a more professional and finished look.  I did want to find out if I would enjoy this before I spent too much money.

Have a lovely weekend,

Anne

Highschoool artwork

My favourite memories from high school are when I was either in the library or having art classes.  I remember doing all kinds of interesting things in art that I had never been exposed to before.  Working in clay, silk screen printing, tie-dying and making lino prints to name a few.

After I discovered Chantal Vincent's blog (check out the button on the side bar), and being inspired by her stamps and lino prints, a little memory came to the surface.  Didn't I have a piece of artwork in the linen cupboard from high school days, something I made when I was either 13 or 14 years of age?
I went scrabbling last night and found my memory and here it is.

From memory this is a lino print.  The design is of my Grandma's house, she lived just across the road from the high school and we would visit her for lunch every day.  (Home was 20 miles away by school bus).  Looking at this artwork (which is printed on a pillowslip), I can't believe I actually did this.  Here is a closer view.

Looking at this makes me want to have another go at lino printing and I've already started drawing up some designs which I think would look very nice on a linen tea towel or two.  It's fun playing around with sketches and ideas.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend.  We are quite sodden with rain here and probably won't see the sunshine this weekend.  Ah that means lots of opportunities for delightful inside craft stuff.  :-)

Anne