Christmas is Coming

Christmas is now less than two weeks away, which means that I need to get going on my annual woodcut holiday card.  I think I have my artist of the year picked out (as usual, I'll keep the design under wraps until the 25th), but there are other tasks that have to be done as part of making the card.  I had a few things I needed to get done before class tonight, things done easier at the Studio, so I headed up there this morning with a list of things to do.

Down in the basement I was surprised to see our door open and the lights on, since I don't typically see Molly there on Thursday mornings this semester.  Not Molly, but her friend Grace, who has printed there before.  When I last saw her in the spring, she was producing multi-block woodcut menus for  special multi-course theme meals at the restaurant where she is a chef.  (this woodcut menu thing has been discontinued, much to her disappointment, which got me to thinking that more businesses should have woodcut artist as a paid position)  Today she was printing Christmas cards.  The block was already cut, so she's a bit ahead of my pace.  She actually had 5 designs all cut into a long block, which were printed on a single piece of paper (see above) and will be cut apart later to make postcard style cards.

I began my day there by grading a big pile of student work, easier on my large work table than on my kitchen table at home.  Then it was time to start my card.  I usually put two or three cards on a single piece of wood, but I don't have any small blocks with empty space, so I started a new one.  Cut a piece of birch large enough to have two cards- one for now, one for next year.

Printing cards requires something stiffer than typical printing paper,  both so it can survive the trip through the mail without getting crumpled, and so it can stand up when the recipient displays it on a tabletop.  In the past I had picked up sheets of something like bristol, or very thin hot press watercolor paper.   A 22" x 30" piece ran 2 or 3 bucks, and could make 12 cards.  Unfortunately, the places I have picked up such paper have either gone out of business or moved, and it's not worth doing a big mail order for just a few sheets.  Luckily, Molly tipped me off last year that our campus bookstore carries some papers in a little flat file type display.  Not many options, but a few decent papers and all for relatively cheap.  Last week I picked up a couple of sheets of what they called white posterboard, but looked very similar to what I usually use to make cards, and only 40 cents each.  I was going to be back on campus tonight, so I wanted to test print the paper to see how it printed, in case I wanted to buy more, or try something else.   I tore it down to make some smaller sheets and tested it with oil ink and an old card block from several years ago.

Grace is accustomed to printing with a press and mentioned experiencing difficulties hand printing on heavier paper, and was curious to see how I'd print it.  Using some of my repurposed objects, it took only seconds to rub the print and she was impressed with how cleanly the image printed.  So back on campus tonight I picked up a couple of extra sheets of the same paper, paying with loose change from my pocket.  The next step is to finalize the idea, draw and cut the block by this weekend, so I can print early next week and have them dry enough to color well before Christmas Day.