Printmaking is one of those arts that I do very very rarely. It’s a MASSIVE pain in the ass and neck and arm and head… seriously, carving a gigantic stamp for hours and hours on end hurts. I actually had to stop carving this one halfway through for a few days as i was developing RSI down my arm. That said, every now and then I get… obsessed. Like my brain won’t let me do any goddamn thing else other than get my tools out and carve for several days. This happened recently, and so:
I started with a sketch; covered the back of the page with black pastel and transferred the image to a tile. This takes a long time, but that’s the easy part.
Now carve. Carve carve carve. caaaaaaaaaaaaaaarve. Then carve some more. Keep carving. Carve til it hurts. Also: try not to stab yourself. You’ll probably stab yourself. But keep carving. Also also: keep your tools sharp. Sharp tools means less slips, less slips mean less stabbings. Also also also: sharp tools mean that when you do stab yourself, the wound will have nice clean edges, so you’ll have that going for you.
At last, a great big stamp! At this point my floor was 90% covered with little blue slivers. It’s been weeks, I’m still finding the little buggers. One medium tile produces enough little bits of scrap to cover one to two football fields.
First print! Huzzah, I didn’t bollocks it up entirely! That’s always the fear, that something will have gone to heck in the carving process and the final image will be rubbish and all those hours of sketching and carving and hoping were wasted. But no! Clean print! Yaaaaay!
YAAAY THE PRINT DOESN’T SUCK!
Tossed some colour over it because why not. Not a great job but hey, I’ve got a nice big stamp, I can make as many of these as I bloomin’ well please. It’s somethin’ to have fun with.