Reduction Addiction

My mom has recently become addicted to reduction cut relief printing. She tried relief printing a couple of years ago to create Christmas cards for our printmaking group's card exchange, and while she didn't hate it, it didn't really grab her. We recently had homework to do an insect print, and I'd had a grasshopper photograph that Mom really wanted to try doing a reduction cut of. Here's her process:

Materials: Safety Kut Block 5 3/8" x 4"
Speedball #1 Lino Cutter Assorted blades
Speedball 4" Soft Rubber Brayer
Speedball Water Soluble Block Printing Inks

Step 1: draw picture on tracing paper and rub onto Block
Step 2: remove white highlights and print with a mix of white plus #3045 yellow

Step 3: remove leaf veins and light yellow grasshopper parts and print with a mix of white plus #3412 dark yellow

Step 4: cut away yellow grasshopper parts and print with a mix of #3404 green, #3045 yellow, and #3412 dark yellow

Step 5: cut away all green parts and print with a mixture of #3406 brown, #3407, and #3408 violet

Adventures in Lithography, Part 3

The final step in the print was a flat of very light, slightly yellow neutral background; almost like a pale parchment colour. This was achieved by just inking the stone right over the prepared drawing, which provides me with the opportunity of working back into the image in the future. I'd like to maybe try reworking the mid-values to try to get a just-brown print. This isn't a great image - I'll have to retake it one day when it's sunny, but you get the idea.

I've been asked to donate a piece to the Federation of Canadian Artists fundraiser "Paintings, by Numbers", so this will be what I donate. It's a neat event: artists donate works of a certain minimum value, and supporters purchase tickets. The tickets are drawn randomly, and the first purchaser has choice of 60 works of art; the second has 59, the third 58, etc. The last ticket drawn, obviously, gets the last piece of art on the wall, but there's also a "consolation" prize for being drawn last. Last year it was a weekend trip for two I think to Painters' Lodge in Campbell River, or something similar. The event sold out for this year within a month of last year's event completing. Should be lots of fun! I was timekeeper last year, and I hope to do that again this year. Each purchaser has only 2 minutes to make their decision; my job was to make sure that they didn't go over that limit. There were lots of incredible pieces available last year; I'm looking forward to seeing what will be available this year. There was some potential controversy about me donating a print to a "painting" event, so we'll see how it goes. It looks so incredible in real life, if I do say so myself, and Dave will build it a beautiful frame, plus it's such a large piece; I don't think there will be a problem.