Hello! My snail-mail project, the “One-Way Pen Pal,” moves along at–appropriately–a snail’s pace. So, I’m adding a gift.
Subscribe by November 5th to receive the very first letter of the project, and with your second letter, I will include an original illustration. Likely a 4×6 pen-and-ink drawing of a flower bouquet.
(To those of you who have already ordered, no need to do a thing. I’ll include this gift with your second letter.)
If you’d like to order the letters as a gift, but you want the illustration, just say so when you order and include both addresses.
I’m not going to share much about each month’s letter, because I want it to be unique and special to those receiving them. However, for the first one, here’s a sneak peak at the envelope art.
Also, it’s been a while since I worked on block prints. Last year, I focused on cooking gadgets and ingredients to print on kitchen towels and aprons.
After figuring out how to carve and line up two blocks to make spice jars with color and a black outline, I realized: there are a lot of carving and printing techniques I’ve never tried.
When a local art studio offered a seven-week class, I signed up. Already halfway through, I’ve learned so much. Or, actually, I’ve faced down fears about messing up, and I’ve tried a few new-to-me techniques.
The big “scary” carving of a rubber duck—leave it to me to complicate a rubber duck—requires slicing the block into four pieces after I’ve carved it. Then, after printing those four pieces in different colors, I return to the duck piece and carve away all but an eye and maybe some outline marks. (There’s no putting it back once it’s carved away.) Then I print one more time on the pages with four colors.
I haven’t gotten to the “reduction” part, where I carve away the duck, but I’ll report back to let you know how it turns out. Even if it fails.
So, here goes! I’ll keep working to connect with people who want cheerful mail each month–thank you for your help getting the word out–and I’ll carve away the little yellow duck, and we’ll see what happens next …
As always, thank you for following along!
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