I have been working on prints for my great-grandmother Grace’s quilt for the last few days. I have been trying to come up with something approaching floral. Not really my wheelbase and frankly I’m not thrilled with the results so far, and I’ve managed to burn myself on my heat gun in the process.

I’ve been trying a few different techniques, stencils and block printing. I’m having better success so far with the block printing. For the quilt pattern I’ve chosen, the Chimney Sweep I need four different prints. I have one picked out already from existing prints:

Red flowers on pink background

So that leaves three to go. I did this one in two layers – a really light pink background layer and then a block-printed layer from a wooden batik block. I’d show you a picture of the block but I left it on my Paula Roland Hot Box when I shut it down for the day so it’s stuck there for now. That’s how things work with encaustic: to get things fluid (i.e. paintable/printable) you have to apply heat, as soon as it cools down, and it cools down quickly, it reverts to it’s solid state.

I’m going to go on a shopping trip tomorrow to see if I can find some new supplies to help me out. You’d think I’d go to an art supply store, and I probably will. But I’ll also probably go to Home Depot, Joann Fabric and a kitchen ware place of some sort. I get a lot of my supplies in unusual places. Silicone kitchen tools are vey useful for encaustic printing because they are heat resistant. I have my workstation lined with silicone baking mats. Perfect for covering for any spilled wax drips and if I need to clean it I just hit it with the heat gun.

I always enjoy the exploration involved in the printmaking process. I’m hoping the excitement of new tools to try out will help me get past my perfectionism.