The Season For Carving

...lino blocks...

   Most of you are probably thinking of carving pumpkins. I haven't carved one for the last couple of Halloween season's. (Kids are too grown for the excitement of them.) Instead I'll stick with Linoleum Block Carving. There are several types of blocks that you can buy. I happened to have two choices in my stash. One is mounted on a block and the other is just a sheet of the Lino on it's own. 

If you look at the bottom portion of the picture, you can see the difference in thicknesses.These block are cut at 3x4 inches. Just a smidge bigger than a baseball card. Which is a size that I haven't done in a while. I think I'll stick to bigger carvings. Details are so hard to achieve in such a small space. 

I know, I always say it starts off with a sketch. I cheated this time. I couldn't think of what to carve for the swap that it's for. So I traced a drawing that I had already done. From the top left you can see the block that I chose and the drawing that I traced on to tracing paper. To transfer the image, tape it face down to your block and use a bone folder to rub it down. Before removing your tape, take a peek. Did everything make it to the block? Yeah? Good! Now bust out your tools. I have two gouges and one Exacto Knife. 

The above split pic shows the starting of my carving...then I did a no no! I couldn't wait to see what the block was gonna look like! So I used one of my markers and ran it over the block. I ended up printing this in red,...but the black stained places in the block. It ended up leaving black marks on my first prints. With that particular ink, it was hard to scrub off. 

Below is my original drawing that I trace from...It's on a paper doll.

...And here's the finished print...