When I say 'lino cut' I really mean 'rubber cut'

In high school they had awesome printing presses so that I could roll through my lino cuts with nice paper and get this lovely almost embossed appearance on my prints.

Not so now.
In fact using lino is very difficult when you don't have a press and nice sharp tools.

So when I discovered rubber blocks it took me about as long as it takes to get it out of the packaging to convert me.
Rubber blocks are like lino blocks only obviously made of rubber, the thickness of them, and lack of binding fabric on one side means that both sides can be used to carve designs.
Rubber is also much easier to cut, as my son discovered when he hacked away at a print I had recently completed cutting, but not yet printed. (DISASTER) Its so easy you can cut the stuff with your fingernails.

Transferring your image to the block to be cut out is as simple as drawing it in pencil, and rubbing the paper onto the block. Its rubber so the pencil sticks to it and you can just cut out around it. This is helpful when you want to write things but don't always get the mirror image thing right. So easy!

This is the original design that I worked from today. I don't know why I thought that all that detail was going to be a good idea... 

They print easier too, kind of like giant stamps (or normal stamps if you cut them smaller)

This block is about A5 in size. Easily manageable and easily printed.

I printed this birdie, and the horse below using a stamp pad, just to make sure that everything was cut out where I wanted it be, and to the depth that it needed to be, so that the print was clean. 

And that, ladies and gents, is why I use ezy carve (its the name of the renoir brand ones that I buy) rather than lino. Maybe one day when I can get a nice printing press, I will get back to lino, but at this point, I think the rubber blocks suit me MUCH better. 

"Seek me, here I come"

Another album that I like is Gravity Won't Get You High by the quirky and cool The Grates.

I didn't take a photo of the CD art all folded up, but they do cool cut out stuff too, like The Shins.
What I decided to take from this cool collage though, is that giraffe.

Its drawn on patterned paper, something which I appear to have an excess of. So I looted the scrapbooking paper stash, grabbed Gabe's toy horse for reference and got cracking. 

I sketched up a horse in pencil first and then drew around the outline in thick pen. 

Shade in other parts with another pen (ball point will do) just so that you don't entirely cover up the pattern on the paper.

Then I cut it out, making sure to keep the far outline as the thickest. Here are the two horses together... the one I drew has very weak back legs... terrible job on that one. 

I grabbed some other paper and drew up some patterns and cut out a whole lot of things that I can use later for embellishments and such in my book. All with a marker and a pair of scissors. Heck yes. 

I reckon it would be a great way to use up the scraps of paper that I have around the places, and its nice to have things in my books that I made, rather than stickers and things made by other people. Especially since the things other people made have to be paid for with money... which I often experience a shortage of. 

"Nothing else is love"

Once upon a time there were these things called CDs.

Once upon a time I had the money to buy them.

Given the rise of the MP3, it strikes me that this may only appeal to a small (and ever decreasing) number of people... but nevertheless, I will press on.

For a while, before I became poor and stopped caring, I was into music in a pretty big way. In fact, to immediately contradict myself - I still do care about music. I just can't afford to pour all that money into it any more,and I would like to think that some of the pretension that I affected at the time has been worn away. (I liked everything before it was popular and going mainstream was an epic sell out and generally deserved the loss of my good opinion... don't you know)

I threw out all the cases years ago when I moved overseas and had to make my collection more compact, but I did keep some of my favourites and I totally love the art on them.

So I decided to use them as inspiration for some of my journal pages.

The Shins are awesome. Seriously awesome. True story... if you haven't heard their music - look into it.

Chutes Too Narrow is still one of my favourite albums... ever. And check out the cool art, its all cut out and stuff... so I thought I would use it as inspiration for the first page of my NEW ART JOURNAL.

ps. note that those jellybeans disappear... aldis jellybeans are awesome.

The new art journal. It's the size of an autograph book.
I figured a small book would be easier to work with initially.

And now to unfiltered photos...

 I drew a little scene and coloured it in with watercolour paint. I really don't mind watercolour being epically messy, but if you want clean lines... wait for a colour to dry before painting the one adjacent to it.

Cut out the parts I wanted out.

Then I started with the next page - referring back to the first page to see which parts would be visible when they are on top of each other.

 Then I went over it all with coloured pencils to make everything sharper and add in details like the bridge, and grass patterns and such. See how only my name and that tiny horse (donkey?) silhouette is visible? Totally planned.

I also cut out the space around my name and that hill and the monsters head. So you can see the next page, which I will show you all later.

I say its a horse, but its ears are very donkey/mule-like.

And there it is. The title page(s) of my new art journal.
Thanks to The Shins and my propensity to horde things.

Do you have CD covers and art that you love? Rip it off  Be inspired!! Use ideas from things around you and make them your own.

"Mercy's eyes are blue and when she places them in front of you, nothing holds a roman candle to the solemn warmth you feel.

There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love."

- The Shins (Saint Simon) 

The seaweed is always greener...

Peony - two ways