Mountain Lake

 2025 and the start of a new year. Been relaxing and not doing alot, other than the usual family catch ups. I have just finished the first carve of a new lino print, another large print at 500mm x800mm. I’ve cut out the sun and a large part of the lake so they will stay nice an white (or paper colour). I may even try airbrushing in some colour post printing. I used a super-sized sharpie pen to blacken the print as I carved. 

I’ll do a test print in the next few days, but expect I’ll need to tidy up a few parts and make the call on whether I add in some more detail or not.

Two girls print

 Been a busy month and a bit with the end of the year rolling in way to fast. Been back onto the Shina woodblocks and giving a multi-block print a go. First test print using a water colour paint just to make things even harder for myself ...hindsight and all that ... wasn’t the best option. Sharpened all my tools and man did that make things easier, must remember to do that more often.

Haven’t gotten around to trying out my standard inks, which is on the cards this weekend, but heres’ my first print. I over inked/painted it a bit with the water colours bleeding, but overall happy with how its come out so far.

This is the cut board which I stained a very ight red/pink before carving.

Skateboarder

 

I went back to doing some carving yesterday and finished off my skateboarder in cubist style. First prints came out ok this morning. Noticed that the image transfer using the Mod Podge has caused a little bit of rippling on the wood in places so gave the ink transfer was a bit weird in spots, but overall, I like it. I will have to see if a we bit of sanding can take out some of the ripples.

Skateboarder

Going to have to try out some multi-coloured prints with this one over the next few days and even might try out some T-shirt prints with it if the ripples come out with some sanding.

A littel bit of Cubizum

 

Got my next woodcut print all prepped for carving last night and ready to start. Thought I’d go for a bit of a cubist style image for a T-Shirt. Going to change it up a bit as I decided I didnt like the skateboard as much as i did on screen. I'll let the wood decide how it will end up.

Shina board carving print.

 Forgot to post about my last Shina board print which I finished the first print run just before starting on the feather project. First Print came out ok, I was expecting the chatter in the background and wasn’t shaw how it would turn out…. Don’t quite like it that much, so going to go back and carve it out more and reduce it, not remove it all.

Still on the fence if I like Shina board more than lino

3D printed Chisel shelf.

Finished up 3D printing my chisel shelfs today. These are for all my Flex-cut chisels for carving that I use for my woodcut and lino prints. A pretty simple design overall, that I managed break one when I tried to drill a couple of the holes slightly larger to accommodate my latest acquisitions. Nothing a bit of super glue couldn’t fix. 

Makes it way tidier and easy to find the right tool when needed, plus stops me knocking them onto the floor and impaling my feet ... which I've managed to do twice now.

Shina board carving

 Trying out the second Shina board I got a months back, this time carving an image that I transferred onto it with the Mod Podge. Being a large area and not as detailed compared to my last one using the Mod Podge method, it really worked well. Found carving it much easier this time around after sharping my tools, which always helps.

I got inspired from a picture on my physio's wall of the muscles of the body, then found some illustrations online in different poses to use as reference. Haven’t made any prints of it yet, but pretty please how it’s come out so far.

Primed and ready to paint

 Got the mangle parts mostly done, all bar the legs paint striped and cleaned and now undercoated with CRC rust converter ready for a test assemble before I apply a epoxy paint coat. Still got some sanding of the rollers to complete, but they are getting close to finishing.

Very happy with the outcome so far, really looking forward to getting the legs finished and it put back together. 

Age of AI art

 Started playing around with AI generation using some of my very old photographs from art school days, the idea was to simplify them down so I can use them a base for some woodcut prints. interesting results, found that AI really struggles with hands, guess that will come in time. I really like the Saxaphone and the way it came out, will be a good challenge to carve that out.

Heather

Cara and the Saxaphone