Blocks and Evolution 18 Jan 06

This started as mucking about on the back of an old block. I printed it and it was a bit crap but then I looked at the block itself. I am often struck that the blocks look much nicer than the print. In fact I've often thought of dumping the prints and just hanging the blocks. I don't quite know why this is but the prints often look kind of flat and lifeless compared with the block. I have an idea that the reason is that the textures and richness of the carving on the block is lost in when you print it. So I decided to experiment with this and see if I could make the print look more like the original block. Obviously this meant more blocks and in fact I ended up with 4 of them.

The other theme here is the way that one idea triggers others and the print gradually evolves. It's still a crappy print but I did learn something along the way and its given me some ideas for future stuff..

 

	This is the orginal block after a few prints.
	This is a straight print from the original block. Pretty dull you'll admit.
	This was the first attempt at spicing it up. There are 4 blocks here. A background block with no carving. Another background block with a bit of carving to add some texture to the background. The original block. And finally a block which just reprinted some of the thinner lines to make them more bold in the final print. I thought this was an improvement but looked a bit washed out. I decided to darken the whole thing.
	This is the same as the previous except I've darkened the background. In fact I printed the background colour twice. First in brown and then with a thin black. Rolling the ink very thinly gives a kind of speckled surface especially when printed onto dry paper. This is probably the best print. What do you think?
	This was the first variation. I tried a bright red background. Yuk!
	I then looked at the block with just the high lighted thinnish lines and decided to print that on a grey background. Not so bad I thought. But maybe it needed some white to lift it a bit so I carved some shapes in the solid background.
	This is the result. Not sure what its all about but there you are.

Home