I’m continuing a relief printing series that I started back in 2020 with my “Orange Series”. I was perusing Pinterest a few months ago and started finding inspiration of bright happy fruits that really made me want to get back into printing at home! This is a process where I just really have FUN with printing and experimenting with composition and color. It’s not my big-brain art, just happy. :)

I took some time to carve a lot of new fruits stamps, and I started printing first with black ink. With each print, I haven’t been making any pre-planning or sketches for where I want things to go. Any compositions with multiple fruits are organic and spontaneously printed. I’ve been printing in batches, where the first round I printed in black; second round with mixing red, yellow and blue; third round included neon colors; fourth round I focused on reds and pinks and then printing neons on colored paper; fifth round I printed notecards in sets of four.

There are still more evolutions of the prints I’d like to explore. I’d like to print the fruit with netting and a plastic bag to add some dimension. I’d also like to collage or situate the fruit in bowl.

I like this method of print-making, because I can easily print at home and not have to pay to use a studio. I’m using student-grade rubber blocks and Speedball water-based ink for easy clean-up without any chemicals. The paper I’m using is BFK Reeves and a Somerset paper.

I haven’t had the chance in ages to do any mono-printing. Honestly I made just a few in college and before in high school. Right now through the season of Covid, I’m still not able to go to Manhattan Graphics Center to work on my copper plate etching and print-making… So for now, I’ve had these student-grade linoleum blocks laying around that I’m starting to print with!

I just started printing in black on different scraps of paper, but I plan on making printed editions in color and finally repeat yardage on muslin! Very excited to be printing textiles again!