HOLIDAY CARDS SENT

 I spent the morning addressing envelopes and writing in our holiday cards while he wrote the letter about our year.  I guess the days of me making my own cards are over.  But never say never.

I even got them into the mail today.

POINSETTIA

I've been painting some Christmas cards with a poinsettia flower.

OFF THEY GO

LAST FEW STEPS

Spent more than a few hours coloring the front of each card.  (and yes, the Grass Green pencil made it through to the last one...with just an inch long stump left).

Then the backs had to be signed and numbered.

The inside was stamped and colored.

Then the labels and stamps were applied.

PRINTED THE FRONT OF CARDS

Went straight up to the studio this morning after I braved the snow to go get a Starbucks jolt.

Nothing better than being in a warm studio when it's snowing outside!

First I had to dust off Harley, my Ettan Press...

Then get it all set up with papers under the jig and a pressing mat board.

Then stir up the ink...

Roll the ink onto the plate...

And pull the first print and make adjustments if needed...

And just keep repeating until the pile of paper is gone...

I was done before 10am - time for a walk.  The snow has stopped, the sun is shining, but the temperature has dropped, better bundle up.

Still lots to do before these cards are ready to mail.

Stay tuned.

STARTED THE CHRISTMAS CARD FOR 2014

I got out my sketchbook with every intention of drawing an owl for this year's Christmas card.  As I was flipping through the sketchbook, looking for a blank page, I spotted this cute little tree that I had sketched several years ago.  I fell in love with it and decided it needed to be this year's image.

I got out a linoleum plate, 4.5" by 6" and drew the tree on it and started carving.

I then realized I didn't have a jig for this size plate and card.  So, I got out a piece of mat board and drew the registration lines and cut a hole for the plate, then covered it with clear plastic Contact paper.  I learned this trick in some class I took years ago, great idea.  It's inevitable that while printing I will get ink on the registration jig, and wrapping it in plastic Contact paper makes it very easy to keep clean.

Cut out enough Contact paper to wrap the front and the back.  This makes the mat board jig wipe-able, in case you get a little ink on it.

Cutting the plastic Contact paper from the plate hole.  I cut it corner to corner, forming triangles.  Then I fold it onto the back.

Finished jig, with registration lines and notes so I don't get confused about what goes where.

I noticed the linoleum plate had fuzzies around the edges from the backing.  I trimmed it off as best I could with scissors.  It will probably keep fraying, so I coated it with acrylic gel medium.

I also got all the paper cut for the cards, too, but I forgot to take pictures.

I'm ready to start printing tomorrow.

FINISHING TOUCHES

This weekend I put the finishing touches on this year's Christmas cards.

I hand-colored each with colored pencils.

I tried several different blues for the sky and settled on a light blue because when it mixed with the grey plate tone it seemed like a sky that was threatening to snow.

Coloring each with colored pencils.

Then it was on to putting my stamp on the back, and signing, dating and numbering them all.

Positioning the stamp

The back of the card.

Then using commercial stamps I bought, using a few different blue inks, I stamped the insides with the sentiment "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow".

Signing the inside, too.

Here it is, all ready to be mailed out, as soon as Darrell writes our Christmas Letter.

An edition of 45 

Hoping you have a great Holiday Season

 and a Happy New Year!

RE-PURPOSED

Sometimes, in life, things outlive their usefulness and are pushed aside by better, faster, slicker.

Sometimes, they are perfect for another purpose.

Weighing down the damp prints so they dry flat.

THAT TIME OF YEAR

Yes, it's time to start on my annual Christmas Card, so making quilts and other things will have to wait.

My biggest hurdle is always the image.  I see such clever things out there, and I think, why didn't I do that?

So, this year I'm going to blatantly steal someone else's idea.

The image I'm using is drawn by me, but it is a direct ripoff of Viza Arlington's image, which you can see at this page on her blog, VIZart.blogspot.com.  Viza is a very talented and creative artist, I love her work.  She also has an Etsy shop, where you can buy her little snowman print.  

I'm using an acrylic plate.  I've done a few zinc plate etchings, but this is a first time with acrylic.  It was really quite simple, and I like that you can paste your image on the back and just trace it, something you can't do with zinc.  I also like using an etching needle because when you make a line on the plate, you get a line of ink on the print.  It's just like drawing.

Last night I made some initial prints and made some adjustments and changes to the plate.

This morning I cut the paper, and after lunch I got about half of them printed.

The plate on the left waiting to be inked up.

I don't use my press very often, this is it an Ettan 24" - very nice.

I place the inked plate into a little cut out in a template on the press bed.

The template has lines on where to place the paper.

The press has several blankets which go over the plate and paper.  When the wheel is cranked the bed moves under the roller and the blankets push the paper down into the lines etched into the plate where the ink is waiting to be picked up.

Here's my stack for the day.  Half way done with the printing of the image.

I originally planned to hand color them with watercolors, but I'm really liking them just like this. 

But, then again, color can really makes things sing....

I don't know....

Stay tuned.

CARDINAL PRINT FOR CHRISTMAS CARDS

It's that time of the year again, time to make a Christmas card.

In the past, it's always a problem trying to get a good print on heavy card stock, for several reasons. So, this year I'm making a print separate from the Christmas card, and then I'll attach it to the card in someway that it will be easy to remove.  That way, if people want to keep just the print, maybe even frame it, they can.

Its going to be a bird print, in honor of seeing my first Cardinal while we were in Kentucky this year.  Beautiful birds, and it should be easy to make a distinctive print.

Drawing is done (that was the hardest part) and transferred to lino-block.

Carving of the drawing is done.

Time to print.

I printed a few of the drawing block, cleaned it up a bit, then transferred it to another lino-block and carved out the 'color' block.

This will be the 'color' block.

Then I got out the inks and stuff.  I'm using Akua Intaglio inks.  I decided on the paper and cut out more than enough, I'm using a nice Japanese paper, Kozo.  I need to make enough prints so that after I winnow out the bad ones I still have enough for my cards.

After I got both blocks cut out and the registration more or less good, I started printing the first run, the color block.

I cheated a little by putting the red and the green on the same block, using a little shield over the green part while rolling on the red.  Then carefully putting on the green - it worked great, one less block to deal with (and all the registration issues that go with that).

A stack of about 66 prints,

End of day one, I've got all the first pass done, yesterday.

Got an early start today, but I had to stop after about 20 prints and go get some pain-reliever before I could continue.  My shoulders and neck are really sore from yesterday, and it was giving me a headache.  But, when the Aleve kicked in, I was feeling great.

I started out using the baren, but it was tearing up the back of the paper and when using a sheet to protect the back I had to press too hard (and my neck did not like that).  So I switched to a wooden spoon.  

This is many as I got done before I had to go get some pain-reliever.

A couple of hours later - I had the 66 prints all done. And I got them done in plenty of time to still be able to take a walk before lunch (in the rain).

Here they are - all done!

48 LITTLE TREES

My Christmas cards for 2010 are ready to be mailed out.

MORE GLUING

I spent some of the morning and a few hours in the afternoon gluing the insides into the card.

THREAD DECORATING