Welcome back everyone! I am so excited to be back in the printmaking room making some new linocuts and learning new techniques in Basic Printmaking! The first week, we just did a little experimentation carving into some smaller stamps, and then also learning some layering and registering techniques with a small linocut.

For my design, I decided to do a little dachshund dog with some flowers in the background, almost looking like balloons because I was planning on making a card out of this design for my roommate’s birthday in a few weeks! For this process, we had 2 rubber blocks that were exactly the same size, and we had to use some cardboard to create our own registration panels. This was so that we could print one solid color the exact same size as the print in the background, and line it up exactly in the same spot on the paper when we printed the rest of the print on top. This was honestly the most challenging part, because you had to mark where the paper would go and measure it exactly so that the block had a spot to sit inside the cardboard. Once I got it, the process was very simple!

First I made a gradient with some yellow and orange and just printed that as a solid rectangle in the background. Then once I was done carving out my design, I inked that up as black on top of it and it lined up perfectly and came out really good! Here are some of my progress photos, from sketching to carving to the final prints.

I love how the gradient background came out, and I also experimented with using the print multiple times on the same paper and created a cool grid pattern with it! This was so much fun and I just wanted to keep printing more so I kept printing just the black ink onto some colored pieces of paper and made mini cards out of them!

That’s all I have for this week, but stay tuned for once my independent study projects start piling up on top of my regular projects for this class! I am so excited to create as many prints as I can this semester. Which one of these was your favorite??

Thanks for reading,
Ella