I started to draft my November daily creative action post and realized I hadn't reported on what I accomplished in October! Nearly every day I sat down and worked for at least 15 minutes carving and printing. I carved some new stamps from erasers, I made linoleum printing plates and even finished off a couple UFOs that were laying around. While testing the results from my carved creations I even printed some grape leaves.
My friend Julie told me during our weekend printing pretzels that linoleum is much easier to cut if you iron it first. So now I pass the wisdom on to you. That's right folks...iron your linoleum. (Just mind that whatever you used to draw or transfer your carving design onto the linoleum is going to transfer over to your iron if you don't lay a rag or something over it first). It's no wonder my child doesn't recognize an iron, it's never anywhere near our clothing!
I have a love-hate relationship with linoleum. Compared to carving erasers or a Staedtler Mastercarve block, it's a nightmare. (Can you imagine that the German brand Staedtler headquarters is only an hour from where I live but I can't buy one of their carving blocks in this country?) But I digress. Linoleum is such hard work and it crumbles. Yet I suspect it's what you need to work with if you have future printing press projects floating around in your mind.
The other thing I learned part way into the month was to put a plaster on the knuckle of my right middle finger before I even got going. I anchor my hand on this one spot intensively enough that it became apparent that I needed skin protection. Maybe I'll buy one of those funky leather thimbles and see if that works.
If you're going to start lots of carving, I'd also strongly recommend upgrading your tools. I've gotten my money's worth from the purchase of two swiss beauties - an 11mm U-gouge and a 12-mm V-gouge. It's not worth the frustration of getting the tight spots right without the tiny instruments to give you clean edges.
What I'm happiest about is that I've created things that I can use over and over in countless ways. I want to continue working towards an entire collection of carvings that I can take to the next step. For now, practice is giving me a steadier and steadier hand. Watch out for my pretzel stamps to take the world by storm!
