My First Print

My first woodblock print was my own wedding invitations.  They were actually originally my husband's idea.  He is from Gloucester originally and was aware of an artist in the area, Isabel Natti, who had a shop in the area.  We picked up some supplies and I began to experiment: the sunflower print was my first.  After much thought and planning, I decided to do a booklet for my invitations that involved the sunflower print and TWO other prints.  I created original prints for all three pages of the wedding booklets my guests received, and I had about 70 invitations to send to them. That means that I did approximately 210 prints!  It was a lot of work but I achieved the rustic look and feel for our wedding, which was on a farm near Hudson, New York.  The beauty of woodblock printing is that you can make infinite copies of the image that you carve.  Check out one of the final products:

The booklet (4 pages):

The sunflower print:

The invitation page (All of the letters need to carved backwards!):

 

The third page, the day-after brunch invitation.  We had our brunch in the barn on the farm.

 Notice the family dog, Targhee, to the right of the barn.  

There are so many other purposes for woodblock prints.  Invitations are only the beginning!  Stay tuned for more...

What is a wood-block print, anyway?

For my first post, I thought I'd share a little bit about the woodblock printing process with you.  I was inspired to begin woodblock printing because of the history of the art here in Gloucester.  In order to show you how it is done, I chose the Spring Tide Prints logo.  First, I sketched the image into my sketchpad.  Once an image is copied onto the block, I use tools to carve it.  Then, I spread paint across the block's raised image using rollers.  Finally, I press the paper down onto the painted woodblock so that the raised parts of the block (the part I did not carve) is printed onto the paper.  Then, TADA!  The print is finished.  Check out the pics below for an idea of what happens step-by-step:

Image sketch:

Image on block:

Carving the image:

Finished carving:

Image with paint applied:

 Paint-rolling materials:

...TADA!

Stay tuned for more art from Spring Tide Prints!

Welcome!

Hello, everyone!  My name is Lindsay and I am the artist who produces the art you will see on this blog.  I am so excited to get this up and running and share my products with you!  My goal is to make beautiful art that is useful and accessible to all.  For now, I will be sharing some of my designs.  Eventually, I will have it set up so that you can purchase these products.  Enjoy!