Print Crazy in Belmar

With a group of students ranging from a few to several weeks into the process, I had a bunch of people excited to print, making for a frantic night.  I decided to go with three tables tonight- two for people to cut blocks at, and one just for printing.

While waiting for the 5th student to arrive we took care of other business- distributing more wood, evaluating work in progress, general advice.  My piece that I'm putting together for the Belmar fiber themed show would work as both a lesson in chin colle, but also be a jumping off point for a talk about the pros and cons of different kinds of ink.  I did the demo and completed the piece as planned, and with the leftover (oil) ink, two students printed their first blocks.  This birch plywood prints up nicely, both getting decent proofs on the first attempt, and both pleased with the results, though both thinking about using color to improve the impact of the pieces.  The other three students continued drawing and/or cutting on blocks they had, and I'd be surprised if they're not all ready to try printing next week.