It's Time for a Stitch-N-Bitch, Y'all!

Cross-stitch has been a part of my life for years. Both my mother and my father (yes, men can do needlepoint too!) are expert cross-stitchers, and have been for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I thought it was boring. I was a child of the '90s, so really, anything that wasn't made by Nickelodeon or Nintendo bored me. I could recognize that what Mom and Dad were doing took a lot of skill, but I couldn't understand for the life of me how they could have so much patience for such a small end result. Colonial samplers may have thrilled my parents, but I was less than thrilled.

Years later, cross-stitch has re-emerged into the mainstream, and it is sassier than ever. For the past few months I've noticed patterns like these (by Etsy seller wee little stitches) popping up all over the internet:

Image courtesy of wee little stitches Etsy shop. See listing here. 

And crafters like Cross Me Not have started to use 8-bit video game art (see example below) as an exact cross-stitch pattern--which seems so obvious in retrospect, but I never would have thought of it myself!

Image courtesy of Cross Me Not. See original post here.

My favorite discovery in this medium, however, has got to be subversive cross-stitch. I came across these kits in my new favorite craft shop in Cambridge (Gather Here), and I HAD to buy one! I absolutely loved this piece, but since I wanted to work on mine in public I ultimately chose this one:

Image courtesy of subversive cross-stitch. Purchase the kit here! 

I also came very close to purchasing this one, but it looked a little intimidating for a beginner:

Image courtesy of subversive cross-stitch. Purchase the kit here!

I just can't even tell you how much I love these. There is something so perfect and so funny about stitching these phrases into an old-timey sampler format.

AND GUESS WHAT?? This is your lucky day, dear readers, because Julie Jackson of subversive cross-stitch has set up the Promo Code FREEPDF just for you! Head on over to her shop and download one of her many hilarious PDF patterns, fo' absolutely free. Trust me, you'll be hooked once you do!
http://shop.subversivecrossstitch.com/

COLOR!

I'm still working hard on my second-ever block print, so I don't have much to show for myself at this point (other than some scribble-y sketches and crinkled tracing paper). But while that's in the works, I thought I'd give you an update on my progress with the first block. I did a lot of experimenting with color this past week, and quickly realized that mixing ink is VERY different from mixing acrylics or oil paints.

After using plain, primary blue for my first set of prints (you can see how those turned out in my original post), I wanted to try something a little more adventurous. Inspired by all of the trendy spring pastels I keep seeing over at modcloth, I decided to create one coral set and one teal set.

Farnese Landscape (Green), block print. Copyright Joa Stenning 2012. 

Farnese Landscape (Coral), block print. Copyright Joa Stenning 2012. 

Without any white ink on hand, I tried to use yellow ink to lighten each mix as much as I possibly could. As you can see, that didn't work quite as well as I thought it would. Both colors are much more vivid than I intended them to be. The "coral" is basically just red, and the green one is more mossy than it is teal--which is fine, I actually like them quite a bit! They're just not quite what I expected.

I also made one set of mustard prints, which I absolutely love. Mustard is another one of those weird colors that's "on trend" right now, and I am definitely on the mustard bandwagon. In fact, I am driving the mustard bandwagon. I have mustard shoes, a mustard cardigan, and now, mustard landscapes:

Farnese Landscape (Mustard), block print. Copyright Joa Stenning 2012. 

In short, the lesson of the day is that printers' ink is not paint. The primary colors do not darken with blue or lighten with yellow as well as you might think, and no matter how dark the ink looks on the block it is always much brighter once it's been printed. I'm also not sure if I'm using the ink extender they gave me correctly, but that will be an exploration for the next set of prints. Questions? Comments? Advice? I'm open! Pin It

Stop Whining and Start Learning: Adventures in Printmaking

I'm back, everyone! I was cranky and solitary for a while there, but I'm starting to get the hang of this whole "getting-my-shit-together-during-the-recession" full-time/part-time schedule. Having finally settled into my weird and varied routine, I've decided to really commit to setting aside time for my art (and not just talk about, think about, or daydream about setting aside time for it). This week, I took my brand new printmaking supplies for a spin.

I looked at a few tutorials online before I began, but I'm not really an "instructions" kind of gal--besides which, I had a few ideas floating around in my head and I was anxious to get them onto the carving block. I decided to dive right in, drawing directly onto the block with my trusty Sharpie.

Sketched image, tools at the ready!

I used an easy-carve rubber block rather than a linoleum or wood block, since they're a little more forgiving for beginners like myself. Once I was happy with the sketch, I took a few minutes to decide whether the white or black segments should be carved away. It was a great exercise in focusing on negative space, since the image produced on the paper would be the opposite of whatever I carved away. I finally settled on carving away the white pieces, with the exception of the sky (I thought it'd be a waste of Sharpie ink to color that segment fully).

Block carving in progress.

The carving process proved to be very tedious, because every mark I made had to be deliberate. With my oil paintings, I've been very loose and spontaneous--and if I make a mistake, I can always re-work the paint until I'm happy with the result. Since re-working the block wasn't really an option, I had to be hyper-aware of my choices. I tried to use the thickness and direction of my lines to create shadows, highlights, and depth of field. I made a conscious decision with each mark as to whether or not I wanted that particular segment to be inked.

The fully carved block.

Now, you may think that the inking part is the easy part (I know I did), but you'd be wrong (I know I was). If I used too much ink, the details of the image were completely lost. If I used too little, it created an interesting texture but the image was not well defined. The best image I made had just the right amount of ink, and I had applied just the right amount of pressure with the baren (that also took some practice).

Too heavy! Goofy blocky clouds, and no highlights at all on those trees.

Too light! Great texture, though. 

Just about right.

In all, I'm really glad that I'm giving printmaking a shot. I've seen some really incredible artists make some jaw-dropping block prints, and I've always been curious about this process. Throughout this session, I kept thinking how nice it would be to have a professor or an experienced friend checking in and critiquing what I was doing, just because this is so new and so different from anything I've ever done. It's so hard to tell if I'm on the right track. Any advice, tips or tricks from experienced printmakers would be greatly appreciated!!

But really, how am I doing?

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