Want to teach your children about the folk art of block prints AND get a chance to show them the emergency room? Consider Lino-block printing as your next art activity. I first got interested in block prints because of this old book that my mother had on the shelf when I was growing up about an artist that sells his soul to the devil. It had no words and totally fascinated me.
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| The Little One's Art |
Block printing is an ancient form of art. Here, you are to picture a photo montage of Ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese, all cutting their fingers horribly and weeping at their foolishness as their blood sprays all over their ancient mud houses. Today, block printing is done on linoleum blocks rather than wood, and there is a special "blood bucket" made of plastic nearby. Many block artists will actually take the precaution of hooking themselves up to bags of plasma BEFORE they start working.
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| The set up |
Block printing is a creation of a relief surface. Basically, you just carve away anything that doesn't look like the picture you want. The only tools required are a roller for paint and a chisel like thing with blades of different sizes and shapes. This is what you will be cutting yourself on. After you complete your design, just roll the paint on and make a print! One of the best parts is that you can reuse your design as many times as you want to make prints or cards.
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| My work space |
You could just skip the paint and make all of your prints with your own blood. I guarantee there's a market for it.
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