Last week I attended a class at
Share Denver, and rekindled an old love - Printmaking. In High School (and middle school!) linoleum blocks were a favorite medium of mine. I lost a lot of blood cutting those tough grey slabs.
So imagine my surprise (and delight!) when I arrived at the class and was presented with a soft pink block of rubber. It was like a squishy cloud, slicing like a block of cheese, flexible enough to roll across a stamp pad... it was magic. Why didn't we get these in school?! Oh right, they cost waaaaay more than those thin grey linoleum pads.
I had decided I wanted a decorative set of stamps, so I cut my block down and carved a series of trees. There's two pines, two deciduous trunks, and four different canopies. (That's 8 different variations of deciduous tree, in case you were wondering.)
Did I mention you can carve both sides of the block?! Another reason this pink rubber business is worth it's weight in some mildly expensive metal.
We used stamp pads to create a stack of cards, each one of mine is unique. In fact, if I have three slots, 10 different trees, and two colors of ink I can make 720 different cards. Yep, that's what I got out of my one college math class.
Things I would do differently in the future.
1.) cut each block to be actually the same size and with straight edges.
2.) Carve my trunks, then print them on the blocks for canopies before carving so the tops are perfectly centered without shenanigans.
3.) Drink more beer first so that I'm less worried about how neat my lines are.
4.) Actually, cutting tools are sharp, maybe scratch that last one.
Now I have generic any purpose cards and the means to stamp matching envelopes! You want me to write you a letter?
