Easy Block Print Cardmaking Project - Painting in the Poinsettia leaves with DANIEL SMITH Sap Green Watercolor

Want a high impact and easy Printmaking Project, that you can make great cards with?  Well, here you are….

Design & Transfer:

1. Insert the smallest tip of the Speedball Lino Cutter into the handle, and begin “pushing” the tip onto your Safety Kut block to gauge out your design.
2. You will want to outline the basic shapes by gauging OUTSIDE or INSIDE the thick outlines – remember where you don’t gauge away the block the ink will stick and print.  You want to preserve that thick line.
3. Tip for choosing the direction to gauge, follow the general outline, or as I did with the petals and leaves of the poinsettia, gauge in the direction of the PATTERN of the leaf, or if (for instance) water, you would gauge the motion of the water flowing downstream and around rocks.  Remember to keep turning your Safety Kut block around so that you are gauging AWAY from you so you don’t gauge yourself!
4. For larger areas to gauge, switch your tip on the Speedball lino cutter to a larger tip.  Again, when gauging, think of how you want the lines of the gauge to show, for the poinsettia background, I gauged AWAY from my design all the way around the poinsettia shape.  Keep turning the Safety Kut block so that you are also gauging AWAY from yourself. 
5. Keep gauging away until you see the design appear. 
6. TIP – Don’t gauge away too much, you want to see the lines from your gauge marks.  You can always gauge away more if after you do a test print you decide too, but you CAN’T undo too much gauging.

1. Squeeze out some of the DANIEL SMITH Water Soluble Ink onto a glass palette or use white stoneware plate.
2. Using your 4″ Soft Speedball Brayer, roll over the ink to coat your brayer.
3. Roll inked brayer over your gauged design on the Safety Kut block and ink well.
4. Make a Test Print onto any plain white paper:  Lay paper down, carefully place inked block ink side down onto paper and press down hard.  Then keeping them together, CAREFULLY pick up them both up and turn over so that the paper is now on top, don’t let them slip or your image will be blurry. Take your sturdy spoon, and rounded side down on to paper, press down and rub the paper to burnish the ink onto the paper to get a good print.  You may want to carefully lift one corner to check and see how well the ink is printing onto the paper.
5. When you are satisfied that you have burnished in the ink, carefully pull the paper away from the inked block and reveal your Test Print!
6. You may want to do several test prints until you feel comfortable with inking the block, and printing the paper.
7. Now do the same with your Strathmore Watercolor Card.  You may find that you will need to ink your block more (tip rolling fast takes up ink, rolling slow lays down more ink) since Watercolor paper has different absorbency and have to press harder and longer with your spoon since the Watercolor Paper is thicker too.
8. Keep printing til you are done!
9. The prints will need to dry at least 24 hours (depending on the humidity) before hand painting with Watercolor.
10. You can do some small touch ups with your Sharpie pen to fill in small areas that the ink missed.

1. Decide on which DANIEL SMITH Watercolors you will be using and squeeze them out on your palette, just a little bit of paint.
2. Begin painting in the areas you want with the colors you have chosen.  It’s kind of like coloring when you were a kid, keep within the lines!  :  )
3. Use the watercolor full strength, or dilute to the color strength you desire and paint.
4. You can individualize the cards by subtly changing the color strength, in the technique in the way you paint the watercolor, or by choosing different colors for the cards.
5. Allow to dry and you are finished!

Kristina Hagman at her dining room table, on the wall, four of her woodblock Prints: "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Rainier"

Last week I visited Kristina Hagman at her studio in Seattle to talk with her about her new work.  Kristinas’ Woodblock Print “Night” is on the cover of the new DANIEL SMITH 2009-2010 Reference Catalog.   This Woodblock Print is just one from her series “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Rainier”, inspired by Hokusai and his series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.  Kristina also wrote an article for DANIEL SMITH about how she was inspired by Mt Rainier and Hokusai to make this series that you can read here

When you enter Kristina’s Craftsman home you see about 7 framed prints of her series of 36 views of Mount Rainier on the pale yellow walls of her home.  Two on either side of the fireplace, two on the wall opposite above shelves, four on the wall near the dinning room table, another on the same wall on the other side of the door to the kitchen.

 

Kristina invited me to sit at her dining room table to show me some of Hokusai prints in a book on Hokusai she pulled from a nearby shelf filled with art books.  One of the prints Kristina talked about was “The Great Wave of Kanagawa” (his most recognizable work) with the tiny Mount Fuji seen in the distance.  When you look carefully you can see that the mountains’ shape is also roughly repeated in the shape of a smaller wave. 

 

With this series, “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Rainier” , Kristina is not trying to find corresponding views of Mount Rainier to Hokusai Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji in her series, but rather the spirit of Mount Rainier and how everyone in it’s vicinity sees it juxtaposed in their day-to-day activities and lives.  Mount Rainier is so huge, and stands so alone in it’s surroundings that it becomes a personal reference point to everyone in Seattle and south Puget Sound, just as Mount Fuji does for everyone in Tokyo and central Japan.

 

Then we went downstairs to The Studio!

 

Print & woodblocks from Kristina Hagman's "View from Georgetown"

In The Studio, Kristina first showed me the four woodblocks she used for the print “View from Georgetown“.  We talked about the peculiar cloud formation that occurs over Mt Rainier, called lenticular clouds that look kind of like UFO’s.  Kristina has carved one of the lenticular clouds into the woodblock which is appropriate for a view from Georgetown, which is a quirky little Artist community just about 2 miles southeast from the DANIEL SMITH Seattle Store.  Kristina told me that she began working with DANIEL SMITH Printmaking Inks in 1983 when she was in New Mexico studying printmaking, funny how she now has one of her prints 26 years later on the cover of a DANIEL SMITH Catalog! 

 

Kristina Hagman with Progressive Prints of "Dawn"

Kristina showed me a set of Progressive Prints of her print “Dawn” which is basically the print deconstructed.  Each paper is of just one of the woodblock prints with it’s particular ink color.  If you *click* on the link to see the print, you will see subtle “waves” in the water of Lake Washington, those “waves” are actually the wood-grain of that particular woodblock.  That was an artistic decision to choose a woodblock that had wood-grain that resembles waves, and to incorporate that wood-graining into the print.  It takes careful printmaking to bring out the wood-grain.  You can see some wood-grain in the sky of “Night” which is on the cover of the DANIEL SMITH 2009-2010 Reference Catalog, they echo the general shapes of the night clouds.

 

Kristina Hagman working at her lectern carving on her new untitled woodblock of Beacon Hill transformers and power lines with Mt Rainier in the background

Next Kristina showed me her wood cutting tools nestled in a nifty segmented box, a cigar box/tray that someone gave her.  I asked Kristina where she actually worked when carving the woodblocks and it turns out to be a lectern that she picked up at a thrift store.  It’s the perfect height for Kristina to stand at to carve.  Kristina picked up one of her woodcutting tools and began to carve the woodblock laying on the lectern to show me how she works.  That woodblock is an interesting one with Mt Rainier in the background of the Giant Transformers and Power Lines that run along the spine of Beacon Hill.  Below those power lines is a Park/Trail called Chief Sealth Trail.  It’s interesting to know that Seattle City Light has purchased, for their Arts Collection, some of Kristina’s prints from this series, since those power lines in this new print belong to Seattle City Light.

 

It was fascinating to meet Kristina Hagman, to see her studio, talk about her current body of work, and see some of her work in progress.  Kristina is now working on woodblock print number 25 of the 36, with the goal to finish by this spring for a show at Seattle University to inaugurate their new Gallery Space.  Kristina will do a lecture on her series, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Rainier there too, that will be a very interesting lecture!

 

Thank you Kristina!

 

Every Day,  Express Yourself  with  ART….
 
~Deborah Burns
 
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Bill Ritchie Interactive Printmaking Demo featuring his 1977 interview of Dan Smith on DVD

This Saturday we are having a Special FREE Demo at the DANIEL SMITH Seattle Store and again on July 26th at the Bellevue Store with Artist Bill Ritchie. 

Lisa Snow Lady demonstrating her monotype techniques at the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store

It was hard being inside on the beautiful, spring-like day we had today to attend the FREE Weekend Demo at the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store, fortunately seeing Lisa Snow Lady’s floral monoprints and demo more than made up for it. 

Lisa Snow Lady at DANIEL SMITH

Lisa works from a drawing on paper of her subject, then lays the plexiglass plate over the drawing so that she can see the drawing through the plexiglass.  Then Lisa mixes her inks on a glass palette with a brayer.  Once she has mixed the desired color, she begins to apply that color with the brayer, onto the areas on the glass to cover the desired areas of the drawing she can see through the plexiglass.  Lisa keeps mixing ink colors and applying them to cover areas of the plexiglass.  Lisa may at that time “draw” into the flat applications of paint with q-tips, or other objects to remove some of the ink she just applied.  The printmaking paper then is placed on the inked plexiglass and run through the press.  The paper with an image is removed and the plexiglass plate is cleaned. 

Dave showing members of the Northwest Watercolor Society (NWWS) where on the map Purpurite Genuine comes from

Last Wednesday, 13 board members of the Northwest Watercolor Society visited the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store to tour the on-site manufacturing facilities where the DANIEL SMITH Extra Fine Watercolors are made. The same manufacturing facilities are also where the DANIEL SMITH Original Oil Paint , DANIEL SMITH Ultimate Acrylic Paint , and DANIEL SMITH Printmaking Inks are made.

The tour was in four parts:

Next, David lead the group back to the demo room to answer more questions…there is always so much to learn!

Boardmembers of the Northwest Watercolor Society, thank you for coming, we were happy to see you, and show you how our DANIEL SMITH Extra Fine Watercolors are made! 

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Originally published May 30, 2008

http://danielsmithart.blogspot.com/2008/05/northwest-watercolor-societys-tour-to.html

Updated August 10, 2009:

Here is the link for the DANIEL SMITH Video: “The Art of Making Paint”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Every Day,  Express Yourself  with  ART….
 
~Deborah Burns
 
Follow DANIEL SMITH on Twitter
Become a DANIEL SMITH Fan on Facebook