relief printmaking

I think I've found my new money pit...hand carved stamps from my art work. Today I went to Daniel Smith Art Store in Seattle...never surprised when I come out of the store spending $100 or more on art supplies. I bought a Speedball 4-inch block printing baren, a # 3 and #4 gouge blades, three tubes of water-soluble ink, a linoleum working plate, Paragona glass palette, and several different sizes of Safety-kut printmaking blocks. I went looking for a instruction book on printmaking, but wasn't thrilled with the small selection. I think I can get more information off the internet or reading blogs about print making then in the books I looked at today.

So with my new stuff, I re-worked my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel head of Bella; carved a new stamp of a French bull dog from one of my drawings from the summer, and carved a leaf. I really like carving out these stamps...it's rather relaxing and just can't stop thinking about the endless stamps I can make. I still want to buy a Speedball hand press that would allow me to print out images that are 6" x 8",but that's something I'm going to have to get by mail from Dick Blick.

I really appreciated the sales person in Daniel Smith Art Store who let me try out the product I was interested in, before spending the money to discover the product wasn't what I wanted. They had a sample linoleum,brown linoleum, and safety-kut printing blocks. The lineleum blocks were too hard and I knew that I would have to apply to much pressure to carve out my design, so the Safety Kut printing block which is easy to cut and soft.

I figure I'll teach myself as much as possible and hope to find a workshop on print making in the near future, but until then, I'll carve away...