Using Multiple Blocks - Hand Carved Whenever Possible!

There is a new relief print carving material available at Blick.  To look at it from the side, it is half white and half gray - in layers.  There are no directions available with the material, but it seems that an artist could carve either side, depending on the end result preference.  The familiar pink material, made by Speedball, can be seen below with the two spiders.  Below them is the newest material carved with the white side on the bottom and the dark side on the top....that means the image was added to the dark surface, then the material that was removed with the carving blades revealed the white material underneath. 

The relief prints that result seem to be the same quality and ink coverage with both materials.  It will be interesting to see if they both maintain their integrity with use, over time.  I have had pretty good results with the Speedball material, using carved images two and three years after the original carving.  The skeleton is only the second image I have carved using this new material, so it has yet to pass the test of time and use.

In the third printing, the block did not seem to hold the ink as well as expected, but when using the white ink (see yesterday's post,) it did as well as expected and.....the white printing was actually completed after all of these images.....

The spider below is simply one of the Speedball/pink blocks , from above, printed on the scrap paper, then enhanced with some black line and magenta line drawings. 

I happened across a couple of wonderful spider rubber stamps on sale recently and plan to share those in a couple of days.....they have a much more authentic look than this whimsical, fuzzy dangler.  I received an email this morning advertising Halloween party supplies for sale and the tagline read, "Celebrating with scary or cute - we have it all......"  I am glad they were not selling scary clown products!!!