So, I’m taking Printmaking 101 for the third time.  The third time!  Yay!  The first night was monoprinting, which is fun and interesting but not “my thing” until I realized that combining it with my relief prints would be clever (it is this kind of “duh” thinking that is preventing me from moving on to Printmaking 201 and makes Kamala, my instructor, roll her eyes at me).

The result is my octopus print.  The background is a monoprint with oil-based etching inks, the octopus is a block print, using water-soluble inks.  The water-soluble inks are great for working with at home but I still got myself into a bit of a mess.  Okay, a big mess.  I’m pretty pleased with the result, but have since done some more carving on the block to make the details a bit finer.

By the way, I use Safety-Kut blocks which are excellent quality, no “dust” and smooth as butter.  They are better than Speedball blocks and usually cheaper than Mastercarve blocks (which are also excellent quality).  I get my printmaking supplies from Daniel Smith which luckily is in the neighborhood.