Soft Block Printing

by Karen Lynn Ingalls

Dragonfly soft block print • © 2003 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The summer is flying by! It's already nearly September, and time for my last one-day workshop of the summer – Soft Block Printing.

If you've ever tried linoleum block printing and found it too hard to cut, or admired wood block printing from afar, soft blocks may be just what you're looking for. Soft blocks are easy to cut, and pretty durable. And what you can do with them - oh, it just does my heart good!

The dragonfly print above I made from the drawing of a dragonfly I found. Catching all that motion and glitter and flight in the form of a print gave me great joy – and still does, whenever I look at it. I also combined block printing and painting to create an ongoing series of dragonfly paintings in different colors. You can see one of the most recent, Iridescence, below.

Iridescence - a mixed media painting combining acrylic paint and soft block printing • © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

In fact, I'd like to revisit that series, this time adding relief printing, and perhaps using stencils, along with the block printed and painted areas. Block printing is wonderful all by itself, but pretty darned amazing combined with other media.
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