Printmaking

A great deal of what I used to do in college revolved around printmaking. One of the colleges I attended was Northwestern Michigan in Traverse City. They had an incredibly strong art department and I learned stone and plate lithography (which I love), etching, and serigraph (silk screening), and block printing. I’ve never lost my love of printmaking. When my husband and I created the Countree Toy Shoppe we designed and created a line of toys that contained 50 designs and many of them were also silk screened. Screening on wood was fun and a good way to use my training. It required a particular skill set and the knowledge to pick out inks that were safe and toxic when dried – even if they got chewed on. We are lucky that in Michigan is a multinational company that creates all kinds of inks (Naz-Dar).

Recently a recycled Sari bundle of scraps brought me around to thinking about the printing and I purchased a wood block used for printing on sari’s. I’m not going to print with the block but will use it in a necklace once I alter its depth. It’s a nice teak wood and will look good on a necklace with other bits and pieces to things I find fascinating. Totally fascinating is how fabric is printed with these blocks. Check out these video’s on U-Tube. It makes me long to try printing again some day.

While checking around for these blocks I also ran into a great resource for new blocks: The Indian Block Company. The designs they have range from intricate to simple. But simple applied in a great pattern never looks simple when it’s done. What have you thought of working on lately outside of your normal artistic medium?

Aren't the patterns on this material just wonderful?  Wouldn't some of the patterns be great on beads?  I think you would even print on some fabric and bead the patterns.  Everything rolls around to the jewelry eventually....LOL