Birches Block Print
I made this print from a printing plate made out of card stock. I used scissors and an Xacto knife to cut up card stock and I then glued the pieces to another piece of card stock using Elmer’s white glue and then glued the whole thing to a thin sheet of wood. I sealed the plate by painting it with a thin coat of acrylic gloss medium. Here’s what the plate looked like before I inked it up for printing.
Birches Plate
I shaded in the raised pieces with a pencil and I used a hole punch to cut out the circles. You can see how thin the raised pieces are. I learned from my previous printing projects that you don’t need much depth to separate the inked parts from the unlinked parts. This was a test to see if the thickness of card stock would be enough to do the job, and it worked.
Here’s what my printing setup looked like:
Birches Printing Setup
Notice I masked the edges with blue painter’s tape. (The tape is blue not the painter). I didn’t mask my first print as you can see in this picture of the edition.
Birches Printed Edition
The only problem I ran into was when I cleaned up. The acrylic I used to seal the plate did not hold up to running water. Some water got in, lifted some of the paper, and warped the wood backing. Oh, well. That’s what tests are for – to work the bugs out.
This would be a good method to use with children. The materials are cheap and easy to use and are non-toxic. Clean up is with soap and water.
Card stock plate, Sax Arts & Crafts black block printing ink on inkjet paper. Image is 3.25×5.5 inches (8×13.5 cm).
Jim
