Hi! Are you a new or recent visitor to my blog? I hope you stick around and have a bit of a read. To make it easier to keep up to date with new content, please subscribe to my RSS feed. Of course, feedback is always appreciated and leaving a comment is a great way for me to come and check out your site.

I have been working on some of my art prints and they are now available for sale for AU $18.00 each including postage, limited quantity.

If you would like to buy any of these prints, please click on the relevant Paymate payment button below. Paymate is an Australian payment system (similar to PayPal) that accepts credit card payments. You don’t need to register to make a payment.

If you would rather pay with PayPal (credit card or funded) then please use this address shop [ AT ] redinstead.com.au - I am happy to accept PayPal if that suits you better.

“Red” - a gocco print that is machine sewn onto paper mat ready for framing.

21 x 28cm. AU $18.00 (including postage)

“Black and Blue” - a gocco print that is machine sewn onto a paper mat ready for framing.

21 x 28cm. AU $18.00 (including postage)

“BLOOM” - my mixed media/collage piece printed on card ready for framing.

21 x 28cm. AU $18.00 (including postage)

If you have any problems with payment or have any questions please leave me a comment here.  Thank you! 

Last night I did some Gocco printing. Strike while the iron’s hot and all that.

I had printed some designs out a while ago and had even taken them to the library to photocopy them but somehow it never got further than that. Why do I procrastinate so much? It is something I am working on…

So anyway, I got out the Clean Up Paper and turned the iron on and got my photocopies ready so that I could burn the screen.

What is the Clean Up procedure? First you need to get yourself some Artwork Clean Up Paper (which is AU $5 for a 30m roll from Nehoc) and then following the directions, iron the paper over your photocopied artwork a few times. This quick extra step eliminates the moisture in the paper, sets the carbon onto the paper and evens out the carbon level of the design. It can make a big difference to the quality of your screen. Once you have done this you go ahead and burn your screen as normal.

Then I burned my screen and thought about what colours I would use. In the photo below you can see the paint blocking tape that I have used to separate the colours.

I decided on green (a real favourite of mine lately) and chocolate brown (another great colour) and then I thought I had better do the word “red” in red. Here you can see the screen with the ink added.

Next it was crunch time. I haven’t done many gocco prints so I still don’t feel so confident about the process. I had to follow along in my instruction book to make sure I knew what I was doing. The print turned out great. I wanted that grungy look. Here it is:

I printed a bunch of these on to some graph paper that I had, as I thought that the graph squares would complement the design. I love seeing loads of gocco prints all together (something about the repetition of design) so here you go…

I am thinking that I will make up a mat board for these and maybe even use a stamp pad or dry brush acrylic to colour the mat board and then frame them for sale.

While I had all the stuff out, I thought I would do a little bit more. In amongst all the supplies I found a screen that had been burned already that came with the gocco when I bought it from eBay a while back. I had forgotten all about it. It was hard to see what the screen was of, even when I held it up to the light so I thought the only way to find out would be to print from it and hope it was a good one!

Hmmm…. I found that it obviously was a screen that didn’t burn successfully. Since I had put all that ink in, I thought I would print a few of them up and I realised that this would make a nice background for another print I was planning to do. Happy accidents are fun. So I burned another screen while these dried a bit and then eyeballed the registration to print in black on top of this blue background. I think it turned out really well.

This will be another one to mat and frame for the shop. I will let you know when I add these gocco prints to the shop.

Gocco is good! Save the Gocco!

Last night I really got busy! I finished carving (is that the word?) my lino block a few days ago but I was just too scared to try printing it. I know, that’s a wee bit silly. The word pathetic springs to mind but we won’t say that. Most people probably did lino printing in Art at school but I never did, so I have been learning via library books really. I find Jackie’s lino prints simply amazing and I have to say that seeing these made me think I could do this. Thanks Jackie, you are an inspiration!

Anyway last night I was annoyed because there was nothing good on telly and we had no decent DVDs to watch (Paul and I usually watch a movie or two together every Friday and Saturday night) so I decided that now was the time!

Let’s get lino printing!
I should mention that Paul made this great lino cutting board for me. It stops the lino from slipping and is much safer. Also pictured is the lino printing ink (orange!) and a brayer (the roller, used to ink the lino) and a baren (used to press the paper). The baren was really expensive (about $40) but it does a great job.

I used a plastic spatula to put some ink onto a plastic overhead projector sheet and used the brayer to roll the ink out. I think I put too much ink on the plastic as the brayer picked up too much ink, but I got the hang of it soon enough.

You can see the lino all inked up here:

In the picture above, you can see the book I was consulting as I did all this - it tells me that the term “pulling a print” is used because you are “pulling” the ink from the lino on to the paper which is on top. So you put your paper or card carefully over the inked lino and use the baren to press it down all over. If you were all set up then you would use a paper press for this step but the baren does a great job and I think a paper press costs a little bit more than $40.

While rubbing the paper with the baren, I was a bit nervous, wondering if I had put too much/too little ink on the lino, was I pressing too hard etc. It turned out okay though…

I was very happy with my print! I will actually be cutting a new lino of this picture because there are places that I messed up when cutting (the branch looks funny for one thing) and I’m excited because now I can use what I have learned this time to improve. Here it is.

I love lino printing!

I have just made my first ever purchase from etsy! I first saw these delicious looking bunny softies on Jek’s flickr photos a while ago and I have loved them ever since. I finally caved to my need to have these and bought a couple tonight. They have been printed using the gocco and come packaged in a plastic box or wrapped in cellophane just like the real thing!

I am buying one each for Jack and Emma for Easter and I can’t wait to see them in person! Get yours here.