Day of the Dead Print "The Afterlife" for La Calaca Press International Exchange

I started on this print with the intention of doing a solid white and black woodcut. I carved the figure and the skeleton out of birch plywood and hand printed the first layer. It then became apparent to me that the print was missing something. I carved a small marigold out of grey battleship linoleum. I then used a thick sheet of plastic and made a stencil for the placement of the linoleum marigold stamp. The print was still a solid black and white. I lined up the entire edition and examined them. I then realized that the only way to finalize this edition of prints was to hand tint them with watercolor. I hand tinted all fifteen, dried them. and then applied a light mist of workable fixative. I was then satisfied and signed, editioned, and mailed them.

Bottle Jack Press

I finally took the plans from Charles Morgan and started my own personal bottle jack press. I built the press slightly different than the plans, but I feel that the press is going to work wonderfully. I lucked out by going to the Habitat for Humanity REstore and finding some scrap pieces that worked out perfectly for the platen and the base of the press. I bought an eight ton bottle jack press instead of a two or six ton because the eight ton just happened to be on sale. I found bulk bungee cord at an Ace Hardware and bought eight feet of it. I will post more pics once I get the press completely assembled. I will also make a video of the first print I pull from it. I am super excited that I will be able to press collographs, monoprints, and relief prints with ease. Maybe the eight ton will allow for some dry-point and intaglio. We will see. We will see.