When I signed up for the Printmaking Exchange Six. There was no specific method of printmaking required, which means I could use my half-ass but works ways… Since I don’t do woodblock which seems to be extremely popular (I really wanna try woodblock, but it’s just too expensive to start with the tools and such.) I do bastardized lithography and lino cut, which are both nice and cheap and effective. The theme was also open. AND I signed up when I had sixty+ days to do it

I didn’t, until just within the past two weeks, finally come up with a design, and now I’m starting to feel the pressure. I designed it, and well, due to the… detail… I may not be able to do it in linocut, which is what I wanted to do. Because it’s faster and less messy than lithography. But I don’t think I’ll be able to work all the detail in a simple linocut without it being like… a complete mess… So now I’m thinking I should go back to lithography. Because I really like it, and you get a lot of detail, but the cons are that it will take FOREVER if I have to do 12 prints.

So just NOW I thought maybe I’ll stick with linocut and just not worry about the details and make it look more spontaneous. It might be faster… but then again, I’d have to cut out like… 6 blocks!!

I’d need 6 plates (15 copies) of each for lithography for incase of mistakes and extra prints. Which happens fast with a copy machine, HOWEVER, I’d need to cut and prep EACH piece of paper (that’s 90 pieces) for printing. Then make 12 prints one piece of paper at a time.

For lino, I’d just need to crack out 6 plates carved, and then just start printing. I guess I’ll go for lino. I did wanna work on lino some more.

So the other day I brought in a small scrap of linoleum to draw a design on while I had some free time at work.

Well that took all of 5 minutes and I came up with some sort of swirly-snail design that’s only going to be one layer. I dunno. I guess I should figure out more plates to layer with. I should have brought more linoleum.

And love is in the air. Okay not really. More like in my work.

Roughly 6 months after I first dreamt up Lovestruck and produced a [awful] silkscreen of it, I brought it back my drawing board and worked it over in Illustrator. What’s nice is that I will have much more accurate lines instead of a hand drawn stencil on acetate.

Now I have to decide how to proceed? Linocut or Lithograph??

I have also posted an Alchemy request on Etsy.com for a tattoo design. If you think you’ve got what it takes to make me want to put your work permanently on my skin… go check it out and bid!