Sketching with Wacom

I can't face rearranging my printing area today. In order for me to set it up, I have to tear everything down. Which means I have to get dirty. My 39 year high school reunion is tonight and I don't want to have to do with a complete style reno before heading out. So that I can see people who knew me only when I was on my worst possible behavior. What fun.

So instead of keeping with the plan, I'm going with the flow. These silly little birds have been keeping me entertained for days. The top was drawn in my sketch book and edited in PS. The bottom number was born and raised in Photoshop. I sketched it using my very cool Wacom Tablet. My sketches have none of the unconscious charm of a child's drawing, though they are childlike. If I'm going to create bad art, I'm going to need to disguise the fact that it's all I'm capable of.

Designing with Photoshop

Last week, I bought 2 yards of linen/cotton fabric and was sure I'd have a finished pillow by Monday. This did not happen. My tree stamp remains unmounted. And I have not ordered my textile ink. Plus, my print table is so loaded with junk that there's no room to print. Yet. I set printing aside and played with design.

The plan was to come up with three simple pillow designs that we can personalize. Instead, I got lost in pattern repeat. Using what I learned a couple of weeks ago from this tutorial, I created this design in Photoshop. I sketched these simple flowers, leaves and dots while watching Gator Boys. Go ahead. Judge me. I've already admitted to Toddlers & Tiaras. It's a short slide to the bottom.

I am not an artist. My drawings are primitive and uniformed - they call my style naive. I'd be embarrassed for anyone to see my sketch books. When I sketch, I rough out a design in pencil, go over it with my favorite Faber-Castell B brush point, then erase the pencil. I get great line quality that's easy to edit digitally. I have to tell you, the silliest drawings take on a whole new life in Photoshop. Filled with color and texture, even bad sketches transform.

These sketches were pattern filled (edit > define pattern) with collages created created out of color, texture, overlays & even a little bit of clip-art. Once they were filled, I laid them out using the instructions on this tutorial.  Viola! A cool new design. Creating repeats in PS involves cutting and reassembling layouts. Miscalculations result in visible flaws in the repeat. Like the slice running right down the middle of this design?

Our showroom & outlet is open to the public on the third weekend of each month. We take special order and give studio tours. It's supposed to be 85* this weekend. It will be very quiet. The plan? Rearrange the back corner of the studio. Last week, I was getting a new table. This week? I'm taking over the whole back corner of production. I've 100 pounds of crap to fit in that 50 pound corner, so it won't be pretty. But it will be mine. Mine. All mine.

Designing A Pillow Cover

After wandering around in circles for a couple of days, I've found a direction. When we decided to open the showroom, I went on a pillow design frenzy and made 20 pillows. The fabric store down the road cuts up their sample books and sells them out of a grocery cart. The pieces are small, none larger than 15 x 15". There's usually enough of a single design to collage into 2, maybe three pillows. They're all gorgeous, one-of-a-kind and I'd buy one in a heart beat. One of these days I'll put them on Etsy.

Since I have 18 forms left, I've decided that my first design project is going to be an 18 x 18" a pillow cover. We do personalized, so that's why I was messing around with fonts. 

I found this fun tree design on iStock photo. iStock is a great place to purchase inexpensive illustrations that translate well into fabric block print designs. This one will cost me $15. I added the detailed leaves, figuring I could heat carve the detail just to add a little interest.

Since the design was so large, I printed it on a couple of sheets. Gluing the design to the craft foam paper back has turned out to be brilliant and solves my image transfer dilemma perfectly. There's quite a bit of detail here. I applied the glue more thoroughly and carefully on the second half and got better results. Giving it a couple of minutes to dry made cutting easier.

Half way through cutting the tree top, I found that my blade was crapping out. Don't be lazy and cheap like me and wait until your blade acts up. Replace your blade regularly. By the time it's dragging, it's already tearing the foam, leaving behind a lousy edge which means you'll have to carve that piece again, Sheree.

New blade? Seriously huge improvement. On the first half, I carved around each little branch and leaf. On the second half, I made a clean cut, chopping off the entire branch, cutting out the small sections separately. The long cuts were much cleaner than the smaller, stop and go cuts.

When I was through, I reassembled the whole thing on an 18 x 18"  paper pattern. I'm heading out to the fabric store now to see what I can find. Tomorrow, I'm going to print a pillow top.

How to Cut a Craft Foam Stamp

1. Join two sheets of self adhesive craft, leaving the paper back on one sheet.

2. Print your image right reading. Cut away excess paper. Glue stick the back of the image. Adhere face up to the paper side of the foam.

3. Using a sharp blade, cut out the image. Check the angle of your blade - keep it straight or angled slightly outward. When you're ready to mount the foam to Plexi, peel off the paper image, center and level the stamp on a mat. Center the Plexi over the letter and adhere. I used a regular kitchen rolling pin to apply equal pressure.

4. Do this 25 more times. Or, be like me and choose a wicked complex image, don't follow instructions and do it your way. Seriously.

 

How Not to Cut a Craft Foam Stamp

I just spent the last hour transferring and cutting out this letter. It did not go well. N is for Nope. Nay. Not.
This tangle of yellow foam is all I have left to show for my first cut and mounted letter. Any other person would have chosen a simple letter, but no - I have to pick one with skinny legs and 15 cutouts.

I printed my letter in reverse, cut away the excess paper and taped the image to the foam side of a single thickness of craft foam. Cutting out the actual letter with a relatively new Exacto blade was pretty easy. Cutting out 15 little sections took forever and the results were clearly the work of a novice.

The next step was to mount this floppy, sticky contraption onto Plexiglas. Fail. The industrial strength adhesive on the back of this batch of foam made handing, placing & repositioning out of the question. Any attempt caused stretching and tearing. I gave up, pulled as much foam as I could off of the Plexi, rolled it up in a ball and considered plan B.

This time, I printed the letter right facing and taped it to the paper side of two layers of craft foam. Made the large straight cuts. Wow. This is a nice, firm stamp. The skinny legs don't even flop. This thing will last forever and should be way easier to mount. Kind of like the pros have demonstrated during my research?

The next challenge was to cut these shapes and not ruin this gorgeous new stamp. I tried heat carving some scrap using two different tips. Both left a ragged edge and created a dubious trail of melt-smoke. I did figure out removing only one layer of foam would result in a recess deep enough to keep from filling with ink when rolled.

This time, I used a glue stick to adhere the reversed image to the foam side of the stamp. I cut through one layer (often grabbing two) then peeled off the cuts. Really, if I hadn't been too lazy to look for a new blade, this might have gone better. It took forever and while the results were passable, they were far from professional.

In our process, every imperfection in a stamp becomes part of the image. I may find that thick and opaque textile inks make this not matter, but I'd rather just learn how to cut a clean stamp.

Plan C:  A simple font. Right facing image attached to the paper backing with a glue stick. Two layers of craft foam. One sharp Exacto blade. TTYL.

 

To Russia, With Love

Hello people from Russia. How is that so many of you have found my blog? Visits from your country triple those from the United States.

Does Block Print Me mean something in Russian that I don't know about? Well, welcome to my blog. I hope you found what you're looking for. Block Print Me. Love,

Necessity. The Mother of Invention

See this junk covered table? It's the smaller of two production tables and is supposed to be where we personalize our completed designs. I say supposed to because it's been months since it's been used that way. This table is a quick chair roll away from my desk, giving me easy access to it. Which means this is where I pile all manner of junk. My production manager, Nicole, is very gracious about this. She has reconciled herself to working in a fraction of the necessary space and not once has complained about it.

Nicole has been with me for more than 5 years. She literally runs the show. I could die tomorrow and unless you'd read about it in the paper, you'd never know. She'd just keep on cranking out pottery without blinking a teary eye. She's fricken awesome.

This incredible woman has helped me grow Museware Pottery from a one woman show to a leader in the hand painted, personalized pottery industry. Over the years, Nicole has watched me revel in great delight as we've grown & collapse in despair when we nearly closed back in 2008. Every step of the way, she's been right by my side - my biggest fan and supporter.

The point is that no matter what I do, good or bad, on task or so totally off that anyone else would be searching for an ice pick, Nicole is right behind me. So back in January, when I started getting that starry look in my eyes and decided we were opening a showroom & gift shop - she didn't flinch. She ran around cleaning up behind me, bringing me coffee and feeding me lunch while I ran around like Chicken Little. Renovating the studio to make room for this big dream was expensive and time consuming. I was a little bit psycho and a lot stressed out, which means I was not always on my best behavior. Our new showroom opened April 19th, nine days after my 57th birthday. I felt more like 87. The 80+ smiling people who came to our opening loved our new place. Completely worn out, I found a chair and watched it all unfold.

Because I become so possessed, the completion of any big project always leaves me slightly adrift. I wander around listlessly, lost for purpose and feeling deflated. Without direction, I came in late and left early for an entire week. Sigh. I'd rendered myself redundant.

I started this blog on April 26th - a week after our opening. All it took was a single image of a Galbraith & Paul fabric stamp. Once I'd seen it, my new purpose & product line was determined. Once again, I was a woman on a mission.

Painting fabric takes a lot of space. And if there is anything we are short of around here, it's space. Every corner of every room is stacked with stuff. Stuff we need. In a way that only The Boss can, I started eyeballing Nicole's table. Because she's my loyal rock, she began colluding with me.

See this cart? We call this fabulous little invention the EMPU (em-pew.) Our new Emergency Painting Unit houses our fonts, our most commonly used stamps, paint, cleaning stuff - everything needed to personalize every item in our line. It is one of the biggest improvements we've made to our process since we automated ordering last November (totally eliminating Leslie's job.)  Because the personalization table was so cluttered with {my} junk, there was no room to actually paint on it. Nicole would stamp out the main design on the big table then stack everything on a cart, roll it over to personalization, do the damn thing, stack it back on the cart then roll it back over for glazing.  Huge. Waste. Of. Labor.

Now, instead of juggling and potentially damaging plates, Nicole drags EMPU around the main table. She is practically giddy with pride and smiles every time she walks past it. And I smile each time I walk past my new, 5 x 8' block printing table. It's still heaped with junk and will be until I'm ready to wrap carpet padding with muslin and start printing me some fabric.

Fabric Repeats

Well, it's not Picasso but here is my first Photoshop generated pattern repeat. I figured out how to create this by following instructions from Mel's Brushes. The images are my own hand drawn sketches doodled while watching Law & Order re-runs.

While I'm a reasonably accomplished designer, I'm a crappy artist. I can make cute little drawings like these, but ask me to make something look real and I'll tell you to get real. Like any skill, the art of drawing is developed only over time and requires motivation coupled with a liberal dose of natural talent. While I may be motivated, my skills lie in other areas. Fortunately for me, most block printed images, at least those that interest me, are based on simple lines and patterns.

It will be some time before I can translate a repeat like this into a useable block, but I'm beginning to understand the concept. I can also see some texture easily created with my new Creative Textile Tool.  I'll take it home tonight and see what kind of fun stuff I come up with.

Craft Foam Wins

In an earlier post, I said the fine lines in this Galbraith & Paul block design must have been made with something other than craft foam. This closeup, unpainted view shows I was wrong. It's also two layers of craft foam, making me doubly wrong. 

So I started wondering why two layers? Even though one layer results in a deeper stamp than any we use at Museware Pottery, there's probably a good reason to use two. First, the fluffy nap of this roller will hold much more paint than the dense foam of our rollers. And more paint means more of an opportunity for excess transfer. If you're printing a single yard, the loss is manageable. But if you're printing a 10 yard order, one 1/2" smudge would ruin the entire run.

So, I'm back to the cutting mat, learning to perfect a clean, straight sided cut through two layers of craft foam, which is really just another technique to master. That will be the easy part.

The hard part? Pattern repeat. After 5 days in bed with the flu, I spent the first half of my work day sorting through 100s of emails. The rest was spent trying to understand fabric repeat. I have a lot of learning to do. Photoshop makes creating pattern repeats relatively easy. Translating that understanding into a workable block print - that's another thing entirely. This blog could well go on forever.

Heat Carving

Since the designs keeping me awake at night are large in scale and require more knowledge about block printing than I currently have, I decided to put design & block construction aside to play with a little detail. Using this Creative Textile Tool.

Last night while watching Toddlers & Tiaras (I know. Shoot me) I pulled this gadget out and plugged it in. While waiting for it to warm up, I learned a little about what it can do. Sort of a cross between a soldering iron and a wood burning tool, this tool can be used to emboss velvet, transfer laser-print images onto fabric, fabric applique, seam pressing, stencil cutting and more.

Since my drawing skills are limited to simple geometric shapes and badly proportioned interpretations, I thought I'd stick to the basics - circles and lines. The first thing I did was grab a large foam dot and melt some little dots into it. Stamped the results on scrap. Smiled. Little effort for a fun effect.

Lines heat carved into craft foam are not smooth and clean like those made with a blade. Pulling the heat tool through the foam leaves a tattered, kind of jaggy edge that's kind of interesting.

My next remarkable work of art was a square filled with radiating circles and lines. Don't be jealous of my
skillz. As lame as it looks, the stamped results were fun and inspirational. The cuts were deep enough not to fill with paint when rolled. I flipped it over. The cuts went down to the adhesive, but not through it. Which means the element won't fall apart when mounted onto Plexi.

I've gained a new respect for craft foam in the last days. I have no idea how or what it's made of and hope that when I find out, the knowledge won't accompany a wave of guilt. This cool material can be heated with something as simple as a 75 watt bulb or heat embossing tool, then pressed into just about any textured surface you can think of. Once it cools, the texture remains until heated again. Buttons. Coins. Rubber bands. Corrugated cardboard. This journey just keeps getting cooler every day.

First Block Print

I managed to test the new block last night and man was it fun. Women Nicole & Sara had just finished glazing so they watched, handed me supplies (like a surgeon) and photographed the process.

For paint, I used on-hand Martha Stewart multi-surface craft paint in Arrowhead, a dark steel gray. I poured out a thickish line of paint and rolled it out with a foam brayer. The single layer foam stamp was thick enough for a mostly clean application. Once I develop better technique, I'll learn how to avoid paint on the Plexi, which is easily wiped off, but adds labor and invites misprints and waste.

This Plexi is part of the sheet given to me by my neighbor. It probably came from some home store and is 1/32" thick. It has less flex than the thinner Plexi I found at Hobby Lobby and  might be better for large scale blocks - less flex. Or not. I cut it by scoring it a couple of times with a blade, then breaking the cut on the edge of the table.

We had Egyptian cotton four sack towels on hand, so I gave one a quick press and smoothed it on the production table. This soft, thin fabric is not the upholstery weight cotton or linen I envision, but was fine for experimentation. In the end, I'll have a cool towel. Maybe with a fabric binding.

I didn't remember that my rolling pin (which has only seen action once in its entire life) was at the studio, so I used the palms of my hands to press my first block. The drawback to this method is that you don't know you've applied uneven pressure until you lift the stamp. There were a few areas where the paint did not fully transfer, so I realigned the stamp (harder than it sounds) and pressed out those areas. Since this is craft acrylic and not printers ink, my impression had a thin, vintage appearance. Actual fabric ink would result in a bolder, more opaque application.

See the depth of color on the top impression? I got the idea to layer a metallic gray drop shadow over the original print. Fail. I just looks like a misprint. Layering requires more pattern knowledge than I have right now. I'll focus on getting clean, repeatable results then worry about design.

Orange as the color of the day was unplanned, but does photograph well. The plates have been around since day one. The jacket matched my sweater. Driven by some subconscious design force, I chose Martha Stewart's Geranium for my next stamp color. I also switched rollers. I don't know where I found this little foam roller but I'd like to find more. The soft foam absorbed more paint, rolled more smoothly and applied more evenly.
 

When I started this experiment, I was pretty sure that one layer of craft foam was too shallow to create a good stamp. Unless the results on thicker home decor fabrics proves me wrong, one layer works. I'm liking craft foam. It's inexpensive,  readily available, cuts easily, makes a decent stamp and damaged sections can easily be replaced.

Now that I know I can use it, I can get creative with how. I recently found out that craft foam, which includes flip flops, garden keeling pads and plumbers foam insulation, can also be heat embossed. Heated foam will take the impression of anything pressed against into it. Buttons. Crumpled paper. Rubber bands. Coins. Vintage printing blocks. This opens up a world of design possibilities.

Stamp Construction

I just spent the last hour laying out, cutting and mounting my first block.  I Photoshopped an image I found online, turning it into this simple black and white. One copy was taped beneath a sheet of  Plexiglas and set aside. The second was placed over a sheet of carbon paper and the foam side of a full sheet of adhesive back craft foam. Then I traced the whole thing with ball point pen.

 The carbon transfer was too light to photograph but dark enough to see, so I retraced the lines with ball point and cut away the extra foam. My cutting mat was the May 2012 issue of Money Magazine. I don't know why I get this publication. I don't have money and rarely sit still long enough to read a magazine. Either way, it was small enough to fit on my desk and spin, which turned out to be useful.

Using an Exacto knife with a newish blade, I cut along the lines and through the paper back. My first cut, the little curly on the top right was awkward and yielded a seriously back-beveled stamp. You can see it in the 4th image. Stamps with inward beveled edges are weak and won't leave a strong impression. Holding and spinning the foam with the blade pressed into the magazine gave me cleaner cuts and made it easier to follow the curves. However, my edges were still beveled.

On the fourth cut, I angled the blade toward the image and ended up with a really nice edge with a slight outward bevel. Now the pressure placed on the plexi back will transfer to all surfaces of the front of the stamp, resulting in a clean impression.

I peeled off the paper back and placed each section on the Plexiglas pattern. This is so cool - I'm making my first print block. I showed The Women in the studio and they said "Really? How come we didn't think of this!" We've had several such epiphanies in the last years.

Here's the mounted stamp. I wasn't particular about the details, this is a rough prototype good enough to test the concept. I'll need to re-carve all of the sections marked with an x. The cool thing about craft foam material is that when you screw up a section, you just cut another one. First print sample, coming soon.