I didn’t make a Christmas card, but I did print a card before Christmas.

At the end of October we got ourselves a small lino press, after Y got inspired at an art fair, and E suggested we might make our own Christmas cards. We also arranged for other tools and things we would need.

Ideas are plenty of course, it’s action that counts, and this has not been the year for that much. But I did want to make something by hand.

On December 14th, the three of us sat down around our big tinkering table up in the attic, and started making our own designs. Both E and Y wanted to do a linocut, I opted for what Y used back in October: a stamp made of easy to shape foam.
I started out with some sketches of half formed ideas, some of which turned out to be too difficult immediately. I needed something that could be done in 1 printing step.

Sketches

I chose the sketch of a person reclining against a tree, working on a laptop, while an Obsidian comet blazes in the sky. Not christmassy, as I reckoned it wasn’t certain I would finish it before then, let alone be able to distribute some of the results. But if so inclined you could read Christmas in the shining star and the suggested fir tree, and that I aimed for a snowed upon effect.

Having transferred the sketch into foam, with the alterations that come from the tactile feedback of cutting the foam and moving it around on a piece of paper, I glued everything together in the past few days.

The stamp made of foam cut with scissors

And today it’s Christmas Eve. The fridges are bursting with stuff we will be lucky to finish before the year’s out. The house is quiet, and early evening we will celebrate Christmas with the three of us.
If I wanted to make some first prints before Christmas, it had to be this afternoon.

Bringing out the press, using a piece of plastic (meant for laser cutting years ago) as an inking plate was the first step. And where it gets ‘real’ for the first time. Getting my hands dirty and all that. Luckily, in the spring for Y’s birthday party we did some printing together, and also at the art fair I mentioned above, which lowered the mental threshold for me to get going.

The inking and press set-up

The first print I used too much ink. The second print to soak up the excess had too little because of it. I made a few more, looking at where more ink, and where less was needed, and where to be careful with the inkroller.

First prints

After those first few, I made the first that sort of looks like what I intended.

First more or less ok print

Good enough to tell myself I made a card (be)for(e) Christmas.