With Brent Bond at Santo Press

Today was the second and final run on our 2 color reduction linocuts at Santo Press in Scottsdale.  Brent Bond printed editions of 12 each for the 14 students and teachers from our Summer Printmaking Class at Glendale Community College.  The photos here pretty much tell the story:

The whole experience was interesting and fun.  Very satisfying too.  Brent couldn't have been more capable, amiable or genuine.  I highly recommend Santo Press for any artist lucky enough to print there.

New Two Color Reduction Linocut

Drawing on pastel paper on right, plate on left

Print of first color

I am happily taking a printmaking class at Glendale Community College, co-taught by Donna Atwood and Marlys Kubicek.  It is fun seeing how other printmakers teach, and more to the point, I am learning a lot from Donna who is an excellent linoleum carver.  She has arranged for our class to have our two color reduction linocuts printed at Santo Press in Scottsdale, by Brent Bond.  This is thrilling, to see how the Vandercook press operates, and to have the luxury of having someone else do the laborious inking and registration.  I also learned a great way to help define the areas of color, black and white, by copying my line drawing onto pastel paper the same color that will be used and then coloring in the white and the black. After defining the white, blue and black areas on paper, I transferred the line drawing onto the plate and then drew in the black and white areas. Then I carved away what I want to preserve as white.  Brent printed the first color Saturday, shown here.
Ttoday, I carved away what I want to preserve as blue and then used a Sharpie to color what was left.  Brent will print the black on the first set printed in blue, this coming Saturday.

Carved plate ready for second color