New MUM print...

I have been swooning over some amazing wooden LETTERPRESS alphabets on Ebay - way out of my price league (and prices are going up I've recently noticed!) so decided to put my carving skills to good use and try to carve my own blocks and alphabet from Lino. The carving of the letters is the easy part - it will be trickier making sure each separate letter is aligned on the block to match each other when assembling words.....

I carved a few alphabets many years ago from rubber quite successfully but Lino will give an embossed effect. Due to the time of year I thought I'd try a print for Mother's Day...

Printed a font with my computer and photoshopped (?)  out the middle section to give me space to doodle....

Here I've outlined the design and then filled in with marker pen...

This is half way through carving the block. The black will stay to be printed,  parts to cut away are highlighted with white ink - the contrast helps to check lino is carved away where it should be..

Here are the prints hanging up to dry - I chose a purple ink which I mixed from my CALIGO Safe wash inks..

I hand colour my prints with acrylic inks - Trying out colours here - quite like keeping with the same tones...

..but I like full on colours too but this gave me an idea for my next Russian doll print which was a good outcome...

or just keep it as it is?
Oh I don't know - just do all three!

Just HAD to blog today as I may not get the chance for another four years!! Happy 29th February 2012!!