Today I cut some foam evergreen trees inspired by  a chain of trees I cut last summer. I like the organic unevenness of the branches.

I cut 3 different sizes with the hope that they would work together to create some cards. They were easy to draw and cut with little scissors.

Then I test printed the relief blocks on some paper with speedball block printing ink, gold, yellow, green, brown and blue.

I added a star to the top of the tree and the Hope stamp below and then a few dark blue dots. I may not use all the trees together but I do like how the littlest tree with the medium tree as shown above.

I think I will have some fun playing with these stamps.

Have you tried  this method of printmaking without a press? Go for it!

Today I made soft carved block inspired by my foot prints. I am in a class called Contemporary Practice at Essex Art Center. We are being challenged to “map” a part of our body.

So I inked up my feet and did some printing on some big papers and started to get inspired. I am not sure where I will go with the idea but I am open to discovering.

I wanted to “map” a body part that was positive or a celebration of health or strength. First, I was thinking about focusing on my knee because it has been in so much pain for the last 6 weeks. Then I decided that I did not want to give that pain any more attention or power.

So since I like printmaking and bookmaking, I think my mapping project will take on that type of form. I hope to learn more about the wonders of feet in the process and celebrate the limited focus on the 2 things that I stand on all day.

I like the idea that I am using my feet to print and to make the art that is about discovering my feet – a full circle. So for day 16 of my #seedrawprint challenge I have made two printing matrices, a block for each foot. To see all 16 prints for the challenge click through the first few pages of my blog or if you are on instagram check out @LindaGermainArt and #SEEdrawprint.