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Block Printing Every Day Matters Watercolor

Lantern again (EDM 95) on frustrating day

New Years Lantern

Block print, printing ink & watercolor, 5×4″
(To enlarge click image, select “All Sizes”)

This week’s Everyday Matters challenge was to make a holiday card image. I thought a lantern glowing in the dark would be a good image for my cards this year. I’d carved and printed a linoleum block a few weeks ago and the ink was finally dry enough to paint with watercolor so tonight I painted three of the prints, trying to find the right combination of colors. I think this is the one.

I actually send New Years cards, not Christmas cards, since I started opting out of the winter shopping holidays over 10 years ago and celebrating the new year is more meaningful to me. Though it sometimes feels a little odd to be so out of step with the rest of the known world, it works for me, and allows me to enjoy the season without the stress.

I had such high hopes for painting and making monoprints today, but even though I got up at 6:30 it just didn’t happen. The morning flew by and then I had to go out to get framing supplies. I needed the Blick store people to cut the giganto foam core board down to size. First there were math challenges figuring out how to cut the 10 pieces I needed from the various sizes of foamcore board, then there was problems with their cutter, a missing screwdriver to change the blade, various incompetencies, long lines, etc. Two hours later, with lots of extra free foamcore board that they cut wrong and had to redo but gave me anyway, I headed to the hardware store for glass. The glass was dirty and hard to clean but finally, the framing that had to be done today was finished. Then it was time for dinner and poof the day was gone.

At least I got to noodle around adding color to the lantern. I have the afternoon tomorrow to paint and I will!

18 replies on “Lantern again (EDM 95) on frustrating day”

Jana,your Monoprint turned out beautifully! The colours are perfect, too! Sometimes frusteration turns into moments of satisfaction and knowing ‘it’s just right!” It did in this case.

Havea good week;

Bonny

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Ok, now I could get really jelous of you. This is a really great lino!! I have absolutely NO time to do any of this printing fun I want to start…but how can I be jelous when you had the same day I did! The best art intention evaporated among all my other responsibilities. Sigh*

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This is wonderful Jana. I like your theme of lightin the darkness, that’s generally the way I see these holidays as well, and here you have expressed it perfectly. Here in France the tradition is to send New Year’s cards just as you do, and you have until the end of January to do so, which means you’d be ahead of the game if you lived here!

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I love this one! It’s quite stunning; will make a great card. I like your idea of celebrating the new year too. I love the aesthetics of the holidays (lights, colors, smells, etc), but the retail stress quickly kills the magic.

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Oh this is gorgeous, this lamp. I don’t usually speak in just emotions, but this card is breath-takingly beautiful.

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Beautiful in theme and execution. I also like the idea of “opting” out of the holiday craziness. Good for you!

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This is perfect, Jana! I love the lantern and what it represents. The color choices work beautifully! Love the idea of opting out, I’ll get there one of these days.

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THis image is very nice. Yummy color and contrast and a good image for this dark time of year (although the moon is shining full tonight!) Gees! Not only are you getting into oils but also different kinds of printing and Illustrator – ambitious undertakings.

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Yes, beautiful – it turned out so well – and if they’re hand coloured, they can all be a little different or are you going to make copies some other way?

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Alison, I’m going to scan the one I picked and print it from the computer onto card stationary. Too much work otherwise, as each image would have to be printed, wait for the ink to dry a couple weeks, painted and mounted onto folding card stock.

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By Post Author

Jana- I just adore the Lantern print- and this coloration of it is just luminous. Well done! I really enjoyed your earlier posts about it too. Can I ask, what sort of ink are you using for your prints? (I’ve only seen speedball watersoluable at the art shops here)

SO- are you using an oilbased ink for the print, or does the waterbased ink become more resistant to lifting & migrating during watercolor if you let it get really really dry? Curiouser & curiouser!
Thanks, and it’s been a pleasure to follow your creative adventures šŸ™‚
Christeen

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Christeen, I’ve been experimenting with different inks and I’m not quite sure which I used on these. I tried both the oil and water-based speedball inks and also Daniel Smith’s water-based and Akua Kolor inks. What I’ve learned from more experienced monoprinters is that the Daniel Smith water-based ink is permanent once it’s dry and that the speedball inks aren’t very good. Any of the oil-based inks should be unresponsive to watercolor. I plan to do more experiments with the Daniel Smith and Akua Kolor water-based inks. I didn’t really like having to use solvents to clean up the oil- based, but may give them another try since they seem to be the favorites of the monoprinters whose work I admire and I’ve been advised to try Graphic Chemical’s oil based or maybe Daniel Smiths (one vote pro and con there).
Jana

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By Post Author

This is a beautiful print! I did an etching course last year, would love to try other kinds of prints including monoprints.

I totally concur with your decision to opt out Christmas and the associated shopping madness. It makes this time of year very stressful rather than enjoyable, and I wonder what the point of it all is!

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I really like your entire series of lanterns! I’m feeling inspired to try linoprints or monoprints after seeing your work. Very nice colors and I enjoy the looseness of design.

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