Linoprint Christmas Cards

It has become my habit to linoprint my Christmas cards for my friends and family. This year some of them were of the "Nearly Home Trees" which are a distinctive clump of beech trees, that can be seen on the A30 just before the border with Cornwall. For anyone who lives where I live they really are a sign that you are nearly home, and we still play the game of who can spot them first.

At first I did not like my prints, as it does look like a steady rain is falling behind the trees, but perhaps for Cornwall that is fairly realistic. Below is a photo of the actual trees that I took a few years ago. I need to try and do more linoprinting, as it is really fun, and I will try and work on my accuracy of the cutting, and not snudging the prints, both of which I find difficult.

Linoprinting

In the Spring my son and I did a linoprinting course, and was thinking at the time about printing Christmas cards. So over the last week or so I have had a go at this, using one of my old carvings and making a few new ones. I wasn't going to post about this, but if my friends and family do see this post they still don't know which card they will receive.

I had the idea of putting some cards in my Etsy shop, but think I need to work a bit more at my carving precision and printing, which as you can see is sometimes a bit smudgy. I printed straight onto the card, but see a lot of cards in the shops and fairs print onto cartridge paper and then mount this. Perhaps this would be better, as I have had to wash my hands between each print, and also then it would be easier to get the print nicely centred on the card.

I had a lot of fun doing this, and have some ideas for some more prints.

The robin's red breast was added with water colour

 

Linoprinting at Home

I had a lovely time with my daughter at Easter doing some more linoprinting. She did all the creative work on these prints, but I was there with my burnishing spoon. She based the design on some very old photo of my husband and son. The photos were not really great, and had not even made it into an album, but I just love the prints she made from them, I think really because of the subject matter. The ones with the feet resting on his shoulders may be a little bit odd, so my favourite is the hug.

Bramble Wine Labels

One the reasons that I did a short course on linoprinting, was with the idea to make my own labels. This is my first effort to make some labels for our Bramble Wine. Trying to reverse carve the lettering was really quite difficult, so I have sort of gone for a rustic homemade look. My blackberry also looks a little bit like a pineapple, but I had fun making these.

Yes, I know there are alot of bottles there, and now I am going to get going on the elderberry wine!

Linoprinting Part Two

 

I wrote a few weeks ago about the linoprinting course that my son and and I were doing, but forgot to show you our final prints. I had decided to try to make Christmas cards, so sorry family, but hopefully by next year you may have forgotten. I was quite pleased with my single colour prints, but then the teacher showed me how to cut a piece out of the lino and use it as a stamp for the red breast.

My son was more ambitious and did his prints with two sheets of lino, and several layers of colour by masking out certain sections. His prints are of Hornet, who is a character from Hollow Knight.

On the last week I thought I would have a go at doing a two sheet print, which although I think the concept was not too bad, I was not careful enough linking up my two prints. As you can see below. But now the course is over I have ordered a roller and some paint, and am going to try again at home.

 

Linoprinting

I am a little aghast at how long it is since I posted anything on this blog. So to start a very belated Happy New Year! 

Often at the turn of the year I set out my plans, but as this rarely works out, I think this year I will keep it a bit vague. I have been crafting away, and there will be new photos of some of the ranges of yarn where I work when they are released. I also am writing a knitting pattern for a baby set (3 patterns in one), which is taking me far longer than it really should. Apart from that I am sure there will be more from the veg garden, and probably some wildlife photographs.

My son and I have been enjoying learning to linoprint - and are half way through a course in Tavistock. The first week we learned the basics of carving into the lino, and the whole class were set the project of a positive and negative leaf. The second session we started printing, and the picture above shows my most successful prints, and the one below my son's.

The most exciting prints were when we overlaid the positive and negative images, and I think my son was more successful with this, as he had actually thought about how his two images would work together as he was carving. The course is nearly all ladies of my age, and they also seemed to love his bright choices of ink.

So next week we are given free rein to work on whatever we choose. I have an idea, so watch out family for some homemade Christmas cards, while my son is going to do a character from gaming!