"Children of Lir" Linoblock

The Swan Children of Lir ~ Linoblock by ShaylynnAnn

This March, we did the an awesome project in art class. It's called linoleum block printing, and was truly something different-- you essentially carve your own stamp into a very graphic piece of art. It was ubiquitous in the old days, before computers and printers, and was favored  by graphic designers. (I was extremely delighted to learn that M.C. Escher-- my favorite artist-mathematician-- made linoblocks, along with woodcuts and various other kinds of "mechanical graphic art".)

These days, it's an antiquated technique. No longer do you need stamps to create multiple copies of artwork. We now have cameras and computers. It's no longer used by graphic artists and designers, because we have things like Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign. I love those softwares, and I love computers, and I love cameras, and I'm a bit of a technology geek, but it makes me sad that linoleum blocks have been regulated to historical art classes.

The watercolor I based the print off of.

I don't know how much I've said about my art class, but a local artist teaches classes in her basement. I had found information about a linoleum block contest (no, I didn't place) and brought it to her to ask about it, since I'd never heard of the technique. Turns out, she did some in college and  was great enough to get us the supplies and teach us how to do it.

The day that we decided to start this project, I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I pulled out the 30 Day Drawing Challenge notebook and grabbed my favorite watercolor from it (see above). Yeah, it was pretty hard to come up with an 8X10 black-and-white design based off of a 4X6 watercolor... But I managed to get the entire drawing done in an hour. I transferred it to the linoleum block by coloring the back of the drawing with a pencil and transferring the graphite.

The picture is an illustration of the Swan Children of Lir. It's a beautiful and haunting Irish fairytale... I wrote about it here and included links to various telling of the tale.


Since I think linoblock printing is so cool, I want to share some insight on this technique...

Picture from Dick Blick

The above is a picture of the tool that I used to carve my block in class. It's specially designed with all sorts of tips (that were way to big for all the details I used).

The above are pictures of the tools that I actually used. I brought the block home to work on in all that free time that I have, but there weren't linoblock tools to spare. I took this opportunity to draw all over the photograph with my Wacom tablet, but here's a text translation of my tools:

• Linoluem block. A sheet of linoleum mounted on a block of wood.

• X-acto knife. I can't image doing a linoblock without a scapel knife. I used it extensively for the lines in the water-- each line   (yes, each and every individual bajillion lines-- I'm crazy and obsessed with art) was outlined by two angled cuts with the xacto and then "popped out" with...

• Screwdrivers. You use what you have! And in my case, I had a case of flathead screwdrivers in a variety of sizes. For small and medium-sized areas, I traced the shape deeply with the xacto knife, then slid the screwdriver underneath and "popped" the linoleum out. I also didn't like the way that the cut-outs were really rough (especially when I used the "real" tools), so I used the screwdrivers to burnish the cut linoleum. I am crazy.

• Hair dryer. Great substitute for a heat gun. I used it to warm up the linoleum to make it easier to cut (but gave up on it because it took so long-- no easy cutting for me, because I'm too impatient, lol!)

• Horsehair brush. Remember the box of old drafting tools I found this in? Super useful for brushing out bits of obstinate linoleum.

• The drawing. 

• A phone. To talk to a friend to while I slaved away, duh.

• Book pages. Yup, those are the very book pages that went into the book page skirt.

• Not pictured-- glue. Elmer's works. Because sometimes, you accidently cut out things like eyes because they are so tiny...

• Also not pictured-- trash can. I tell you, the carvings pile up!

A closeup of the detail.

My favorite part was probably the problem-solving... it really takes a lot of thinking. You don't only have to worry about whether the art is good, whether it tells a story, whether the proportions are right... you also have to try and "shade" in just black and white, "think backwards" (because you are "drawing"-- that is, carving-- the negative space), figure out how to leave the right spaces uncut, AND pay attention to the fact that the entire image will be reversed when you are done!

This is the only in-focus picture I got of  the printing process.

It was fairly simple...

1. Get good, thin paper. My teacher bought special printing paper that cost a dollar a page... it didn't work very well. You know what worked the best? Some kind of thin, newspaper-like (with some of the texture of rice paper) that my grandma gave me. The edges were yellowed with age and the cover of it said "79 cents". It's from a local store that went out of business ages ago.
2. Spread printing ink out and rub it with a brayer. The printing ink is a gel-like substance. You have to rub it until it makes just the right tone of "squeek squalsh squish" noises.
3. Transfer the ink to the block. It's harder than it appears. You can't have too much ink (it fills in the holes) and you can't have too little. You have to cover the whole thing in layers. And I found that it's best to roll the brayer (both in the ink and on the block) in the same direction. It keeps the ink from gridlocking. At least that's my theory. But it does help.
4. Press the block to the paper. Believe it or not, our little press did barely anything. No help, really. You have to get gung-ho and use ELBOW GREASE, and a LOT of it. Use something flat and push and rub and kill your arm!
5. Clean the block every 2-3 prints. Easy but messy if you use water-based ink.

I pulled 14 prints in all. Some had too little ink, some had too much, the first few had bad ink (old stuff that was too dry), most of them didn't completely transfer the large area in the sky, etc. It took 7 prints before I pulled a really good one. 

The best part? Lifting the paper up, seeing a good print peel from the block, smelling the wet ink...

I know that this whole things sounds time-consuming and difficult-- and it might sound like I'm complaining. I'm not. I quite inexplicably LOVE linoblocks. LOVE LOVE LOVE. They are AWESOME. It's such a different technique, I've never done anything like it before. I hope to do more-- when I have time. Because it is time-consuming.

One last note-- is it just me or does my Irish fairytale illustration look a little Japanese? It must be the lines in the water.I just did some googling, and it turns out that technique is often used in Japanese woodcuts (another thing I'd like to try).

WELL, I just wrote a book. (fellow geeks, I just thought that sentence in the accent of the 10th Doctor).

 Hope you don't mind my rambling!

The REAL Mythology Issue

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S!

I love the comments you all left on the "April Issue of Ink and Fairydust" and the notes we got on facebook-- I think we tricked every one of you!

Is it bad if I let you know that the main reason I made the fake issue was to gain a few days' grace time? I meant it when I said that I was behind in graphics work. :) 

(Reading every article, pondering what colors and styles would go with it, organizing the illustrators and photographer, finding public domain photos with high enough resolution, brainstorming new layout designs, and stitching all of that together into a 38 page long PDF... it's like working a part time job! Not that I am complaining-- I'm not! I love doing this!-- but for some reason I feel like I have to justify why I took so long. As if you were staring at me with angry eyes, asking why is this issue late?)

 Of course, I was also strongly motivated by my gleeful maniacal laugh-- MUAHAHAHAHA!-- because I do seriously love little pranks and big goofiness.

And it was great. I've been maniacal-laughing like crazy. First, I tricked all the other editors by sending them an email asking them to please review the final draft for typos. That caught every one of them. :)

I hope you guys caught all the strange references that got tossed into small corners of the magazine-- for instance, Gandalf wrote an article, the Fairy Godmother wants cough drops, and I taught you guys the definition of haplology!

Now for the REAL March/April issue of I&F!

The theme? Mythology! We have a very interesting mix of articles (not the kinds you would expect for a mythology-themed issue-- our writers surprised me very much with some insightful and out-of-the-box articles),  a lovely short story, and much, much more.

As always, I'm going to remind you that I&F is entirely run by teens and young adults like myself, who volunteer many, many hours to put this publication together.

Since we offer it for free, we don't have any money for advertising. You can help by sharing each issue with your friends and family-- post it on facebook, embed it on your blog (there is an embed link under the magazine on our Issuu page, here), email the link, etc. Email us at ask@inkandfairydust.com and tell us what you think about each issue. Tell us how we can improve, and feed our egos by telling us how much you love it. :) lol!

My mom recently complained that it is hard to read I&F on her iPhone, but she doesn't like reading on a vertical computer screen. Unfortunately, the website that we use to host our giant files, Issuu, is not full compatible with mobile devices. However, if you make a free account with Issuu, you can download the full PDFs for each I&F issue and read it at your leisure on iPads, Kindles, and more-- you can even print it out. (We can't offer a print version at the moment because we would have to charge for subscriptions and do all sorts of legal stuff regarding the money.) We're looking for a way to post the PDFs directly onto our website for download without taking up all our server space (which is being graciously donated by Veraprise Inc.)



Oh, don't forget to check out page 18 for the information on our first fiction contest! (I'll post a JPEG of that in a couple of days so you can print it out and share it with your friends and family-- we want lots of entries!)

New Issue of Ink and Fairydust

Hey, everyone! I'm in a bit of a rush as we're just about to head out the door, but I wanted to let you know that the latest issue of Ink and Fairydust is out! Many of you have anxiously been waiting for the Mythology issue (and it's my fault that it's a couple of weeks late... *big sad face* A very bad graphics editor, I am...) but hopefully this will be so wonderfully awesome that it makes up for the wait!!!

Did you like this issue? Please email ask@inkandfairydust.com to tell us! We seriously LOVE hearing feedback, it encourages us to keep working on making fun issues for you to read!

If you want to subscribe, just email subscriptions@inkandfairydust.com to be added to our email list.

Sharpie Easter Eggs

I'm sure you've seen pictures of those beautiful works of art known as Ukrainian Eggs (or perhaps you've been lucky enough to see them in person!). This traditional style of decorating eggs uses beeswax, candles, really really really strong dyes, and other materials that most people don't have on hand.

Those eggs are true works of art, though. I've always admired them. Last Holy Saturday, I decided to try my hand at blowing eggs and decorating them with various materials-- and I never got past the Sharpies.

Sharpies are awesome.

Sharpies are the ultimate quick-and-easy-(relatively-easy-that-is)-egg-decorating-tool-things.

And, for once in my life, I am actually being a good blogger. I did a craft before the date it's themed on. I've got a very bad habit of doing themed art the day of or even the day after holidays/events, and not posting the pictures and tutorials until a week or so later. (Bad habit if I wanted to be a rich and famous blogger. OK habit for a teenager who just loves art and sporadically posts on her blog for the heck of it.)

Last week, I pulled out the Sharpies and did some more experimenting! These turned out much better than last time-- and I really liked the ones I made last year.

The eggs are pictured below in the order that I made them. Right now, though, here's some tips:

• When blowing the eggs, go ahead and make the bottom hole really big. (See below). This will keep you from getting dizzy when blowing it. Also, you might need to use tweezers to pull the membrane out of the hole; it likes to block the opening up and send raw egg up the end of the egg that your mouth is touching! BTW, I'm just using chicken eggs that we get from Costco.

• You don't need a ton of Sharpies (I've spent a lot of money and have nearly 30 in different colors and sizes, but only use 3-4 markers per egg), but be sure you use real Sharpies. You don't want that half-permanent stuff to bleed all over the place.
• Don't use a pencil to draw in your design, use a very pale marker. I use light pink and light green. The pencils will leave gray in your color.
• Use a rubber band to draw straight lines.
• Hold the egg with a kleenex or paper towel. The Sharpie takes awhile to "set," and nervous, focused fingers will get damp and bleed the color. (Ask me how I know...)
• Blend and smear colors! The unique thing about using an egg is that the Sharpies stay liquid for a good 3 seconds. Use your fingers, a Q-tip, or a bit of Kleenex on your fingertip to smear the ink.
• Sharpies pull each other up, even once the ink has dried. It's great for fixing problems, but be sure you do the dark colors last so you don't risk pulling dark brown into that light yellow you're coloring.
• If you want to color in a large area, hold a Sharpie against a kleenex and let the ink bleed. You've got 15 seconds to rub that color in wherever you want. It leaves a pale and solid color and is great for "erasing" large areas of underdrawings.
• If you really need to remove something, use fingernail polish remover on a q-tip (or something equally abrasive). It doesn't totally remove the color, but I had a major och-nee (oh-noes!) on one egg and this let me keep the background mostly white. I think it might weaken the eggshell, though.
• Use thin wire to thread ribbon through the egg. Most needles aren't long enough. (None of that is pictured here).
• Sharpies aren't toxic. I'm pretty sure you can safely use them on hardboiled eggs.
• Be patient. I spent almost two hours per egg. Rushing things won't get you anywhere. Be sure and use lots of layering to get depth.
• HAVE FUN! Because this technique is AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME and I love it and you'll love it and it's awesome. *emphathetic head nod*

Let the pictures commence!

First I did another egg very similar to last year's eggs. I forgot to snag close-up pictures of it, look for it in the bowl of eggs.

Madonna and Child

I was a little tired of boring old swirly designs and wanted to attempt something more religious. Because Easter eggs, after all, celebrate Easter, only the greatest day of the Church year!

I'm quite proud of this one. :) It's still my favorite!

The Resurrection

The first egg left me wanting to make more! I winged the first one, but for this egg I looked up some traditional iconography for the Resurrection and tried to incorporate it. This also includes my big artsy obsession, Celtic Knotwork.

You know, art is hard enough on a flat surface. Especially knotwork. Try throwing it on an irregular spherical shape... *head explodes*

The Crucifixion

It felt a little odd to do a Resurrection drawing during Lent, so I did one of the Crucifixion.

You can still see the underlying light-pink marker underneath the words. When I draw pictures, the underdrawing gets rubbed away, but it evidently doesn't work as well for lettering!

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady's picture is very graphic and perfect for copying onto an egg.

Of note on this egg is the rose. Originally my underdrawing had some heart-shaped design that is typical on Ukrainian eggs, but I didn't like it so I used a tissue to smear tan ink and "erase" it. Then I drew the rose on top with light pink, bright red, and dark brown. It took a lot of smearing.

My family isn't very artistic but three of my siblings joined in the fun. My sister's is pretty obvious, but I bet you'd have a hard time telling about the 4 and 11 year old boy's ones. *rolls eyes* My brothers are math and physics geniuses, not artists.

My 8 year old sister did this one entirely on her own. It's "Mary holding Baby Jesus and the back of the egg is the cross after they took Jesus down and you can still see his blood on the cross and on the ground." She then told me all about how Jesus' blood washes away our sins because He died to save us and all about how sad Mary was when her Son died.

She also told me that she wants to make a special egg to commemorate her First Holy Communion this spring. :)

I made these eggs early so they can be gifts for family and friends on Easter Sunday, but they are so so so much fun to make that I'll be making them through the rest of Lent, and probably during the whole of the Easter season. You'll be seeing a lot more of these around the blog!

I think my family likes the decorated eggs so much because it means that I'll offer to cook breakfasts of omlettes and scrambled eggs!

Did you make Sharpie-ified Easter eggs? I'd love to see them! Please leave a comment with a link to your blog or flickr or whatnot. If lots of people decorate eggs with this technique I might do a special post highlighting all of them. :)

I'm Having a Wrist Party

Have you heard of wrist parties? I just found out about them from a fashion blog; they are what you call a wrist full of tons and tons of bracelets.

I decided to have a wrist party, too, and put on all some of the new bracelets I've made-- and they are all made with used guitar strings. :)

Have you done a wrist party recently? I think it's a really cute idea and would love to hear about your favorite "wrist party."

I try not to post about my Shoppe stuff all the time because I, at least, personally find it annoying when bloggers talk about nothing but the stuff you can buy from them.

But since this is the only way I'm currently making money, and since I've recently made a ton of jewelry and listed it on my online store... I have an announcement: You can buy these!

Go check out my Shoppe! Over the past two weeks I've slaved away and have listed 40 new items (WHEW. Listing the jewelry takes almost as much energy as making it!).

I won't post them all here right now, but in addition to guitar string necklaces, earrings, bracelets, bangles, and rings, there are some Elven jewels, a medieval circlet, custom rings, and more. The guitar string jewelry can be found under the "Novelty" tab, alongside steampunk and other geekery.

Oh, yeah, I'm also having a FINGER PARTY, baby! *cue the rock music, because wearing lots of bangles and rings makes me feel uncharacteristically like a rock star*

(No, I've no idea whether finger parties are a thing. If they aren't, I just invented them.)