14 days to Printing with a Steamroller at Quest Art in Midland: Pt.1 Image transfer

I'm involved in a printmaking event using a steamroller as my press. This is happening August 23rd, 2014 from 10am to 3pm at Quest Art. Quest Art is in Midland, Ontario. This is their link to the event CLICK HERE My general topic for prints these days is Suburbia. I live in the deep suburbs north of Toronto now and I am really interested in the goings-on here, though what's happening seems so invisible and so bland that it has now grown into a personal challenge to capture.

The first step is to find/create an image worthy of the work involved in creating a woodblock carving. I need something that speaks to me personally. Once chosen I re-sized and re-printed it, using the Paint program that came with Windows* which enabled me to print it onto several sheets of paper so it would cover my woodblock which is 18" x 40".

 

I taped the pages together like a giant puzzle and then flipped them over to coat the back with black conte crayon so I could transfer the basic outline to the block.

I placed the image with the conte on it conte side down onto my block then I followed the basic outlines with a pencil, pressing down so the conte would mark the block beneath it. Even at this first stage I am editing the image, already it is beginning to change from the source material as I leave this and that out or adjust the placement or size of something to make a better print.

Once this was done I went over the transfer lines with a green marker to solidify the image for myself and to see just what I have set myself up to do. 

And the answer to that is, as usual, something complicated.

*you can scale your images larger using Windows paint by clicking FILE >print, then PAGE SET-UP, then SCALING>fit to: and choose how many pages you think you need. This turned out to be, for me, the easiest way to do this at home.