Now that I am home I tried printing all the blocks I carved in the RV. This time with Caligo Safe Wash Ink. It was much better than the water-based printing ink and went very smoothly. I got a lot of good prints to use in the edition. I learned how to be a little more careful with my fingerprints. By taking the gloves off and on, after inking the block before touching the paper, duh.
I hung them using clothespins on hangers to dry. Then eventually moved them to the big table. It took a good week for them to fully dry.
Some like the small Palo Verde Tree turned out great while others like the one with the desert flora and fauna will need to be printed again. Each of those Desert Neighbors prints has a problem. There is quite a learning curve to just getting the lino inked correctly! When printed correctly it should make a nice edition.
I don’t like waste and since I didn’t have enough ink for anymore lino prints, I used it up printing most of the small rubber blocks I had carved on the RV trip. After inking each one, I laid them out all together and pulled a print of them all at once.
I think it looks great and is a nice record of the small blocks. I usually carve on both sides of the rubber so I may have to line them up in a different collection and print again.
My first edition was the Palo Verde tree. It is an edition of 10! These are now for sale in my shop and I hope you will take a look. Hard Backs made an edition of 4.
For any print purchased you may have one of the other not so perfect prints from another block for free. Choose from Desert Neighbors, Hard Backs, Daily Play or Palo Verde. (While supplies last.)
In quilting news I just finished another rock cairn quilt called Bates Cairn #2. To hear more about it please sign up for my newsletter.
The next post will follow a puzzle block printing to get a 2 color print.
