Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Bigger and Brighter: Magnolias

I've been toying around, for awhile, with the idea of reversing the negative space in my prints.  Basically, carving out the design, rather than carving out the area around the design, giving a nice rectangular bright, full print with a cool design the color of the paper underneath.

A few days ago, I asked for a critique in the forum of the team Etsy Entrepreneurs.  One of my fellow teammates, margopage, said my shop was great but gave a few suggestions.  One of them was more color. She suggested dying the paper I used, but I really prefer the ivory tone. However I got the gist, and it egged me on to go ahead and start my experiment.

I decided to do an entirely new design of magnolias.



I carved it out.  Here, you can see what I meant about carving out the design, rather than the space around it.  


The test prints came out so well, I decided to start off this design in two colors I've never used before: turquoise and orange.  Here they are, hanging on my five-dollar Ikea drying rack (one of the best purchases I've ever made for printmaking).


I love the way they came out, brilliant and deep, but with a bit of random texture to the background that gives each card a unique feel.  I'm really looking forward to getting these photographed and up on Etsy later tonight.  

My question is: what do I do next?  Are there any of my prior designs you'd love to see done in this style?  I'd love to hear what you guys think.  



3 comments:

  1. This is absolutely beautiful!
    As for what to do next, I love trees. I think a single tree would work nicely with this technique... :)

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  2. I was thinking the same thing. I feel the same way about trees.

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  3. These are so nice. Stick with the great colors, a lot of spring and summer colors are always good :)

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