Hey Everyone, welcome back to Coffee Talk Saturday. No snapshots this week as I didn’t get behind the camera.

A week ago Michael and I headed off to the museum in Orillia for a day of print making and playing with ink. Juliana Hawke, a friend of ours and well known artist was teaching a class and so we thought why not try something different. We had been to her place on the Images Studio Tour and were very intrigued at how she made her art.

The museum has been recently renovated and has a wonderful classroom on the top floor with lots of space, a sitting area, kitchenette and windows letting in lots of light although it was a very grey day that day.

Juliana started off talking about all of the tools we would use and how the process went. We were each given a piece of soft linoleum to draw on with a special lino cutting tool. The lino is quite rubbery, flexible and easy to cut into any size you want.

A piece of the soft lino

The inks are all water soluble so easy to wash off and easy to use but you have to be fast as they dry quickly. One last tool needed is the brayer to roll the ink onto the lino drawing. We used a soft rubber one.

Ink and roller on a tray

Our first exercise was just to cut shapes and lines into one side of the lino.

Lines cut in the lino

Then we rolled ink onto the lino and transferred it to the paper. This was my first go at print making.

My first attempt at print making

The second exercise was a negative positive design. We drew a simple flower, okay mine wasn’t quite as simple as everyone else’s but I like sunflowers as you know from my Sunflower quilt. Here I am cutting my sunflower out on a piece of lino.

Cutting the lines for the sunflower

One side of the flower was only an outline which meant cutting only the shape of the petals. The other side was cutting out all the space within the petal and leaving the outline of the petal uncut. The piece is 3 x 4 inches.

The sunflower cut in the lino

The sunflower in black and white. The image on paper is reversed from the lino template.

Black and white sunflower – the effect is stunning

We started with black ink to get the hang of the process. Once we had it figured out I washed the black ink off my lino template and moved onto colour.

A very vibrant orange sunflower.

A vibrant orange sunflower

Sunflower toned down with some yellow added on top of the orange ink.

The orange toned down with yellow

Michael’s flower in black & white.

And pretty in pink.

Pink daisy

That was just the morning. I’ll leave the afternoon creativity for another post.

Happy Quilting!