On shaky legs

 As I mentioned before, it's been some time since I had been creative. When I last left this journey I had been working in print art. The medium I had chosen was linoleum blocks. You know the kind, stiff mustard colored linoleum mounted on a chip wood block covered in burlap. At the very end I had purchase the new medium of pink stamp sheets to cut. The pink materiel felt easier to cut but honestly, to get a crisp line was more difficult. 

I decided to pick up where I had left off trying to get back in the swing of things. My last project was to make a Art Noveau inspired bookmark. With vines, leaves and flowers I started the cutting and stopped mid way through. Last week I found the half finished project and took up the tools to finish it.

I felt really unprepared using the tools again. It wasn't the old "like riding a bicycle" saying. The techniques were there but the smooth lines had to be remembered. A nick off a leaf here or oblong motif that should have been a circle were control issues I faced. After a short while I finally finished the old rubber block.

Now another challenge... working the ink to the right consistency. The inks had separated so it took a bit of squeezing and shaking the tubes to mix well enough to use them. I then inked the bookmark block and was horrified to see the sloppiness of the cuts. I continued to cut what I didn't want to appear on the bookmarks. 

As I started to print off the bookmarks I realized the prints looked muddied. Perhaps the inks weren't mixed well enough or the pink rubber cut prints off mushy outcomes. I think working more with the medium is necessary for me to have an educated guess as to why I didn't like the results of this one particular project. 

These are only bookmarks and little effort went into making them. It was fun to at least start to get back into the swing of being creative with my hands and a different medium other than the computer.

I look forward to the next adventure starting today with my newly purchased Gelli plate.