Baren Print Exchange 37: Drop Some Breadcrumbs by Phare-Camp

Baren Print Exchange 37: Drop Some Breadcrumbs:
While you travel in your grand adventure please leave a trail of breadcrumbs so we may follow and catch up to you when it's our turn to travel...

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I finished my print for a Baren Forum print exchange. I'm getting it done early as I'm going to Tennessee for a month to visit my son and his family.

The picture here is my printing set-up. I like to print at the kitchen counter as I'm right by the sink and also I prefer to work standing up and the kitchen counter is the perfect working height for me.

This image is of my test strip for the inks I'm using. I can't just do pretty lines all in a row---no I have to make it fun. Anyway I had to also test the transparencies of the inks as well since I planned on overprinting many of the colors. I'm using Speedball water based inks. I mixed up a dark brown with brown, violet and a touch of gold; a moss green with green, a little yellow and more gold; a misty blue with blue a lot of silver and the last color a tan with brown, yellow and gold.

this is the block. its a 9x12" rubber block that is very easy to carve and it holds details rather nicely as you can see by the 1st stage proof I pulled









this is the second color. Instead of carving a block I cut the not-green areas away from a 9x12" sheet of "Skratchfoam" a brand of print medium that is very thin sheets of Styrofoam.








Here you can see 2nd state proof.









and here the print in it's 2nd state.




This is the third color plate,










the third state proof








and the print in its third stage.




for this last little bit I used one of the Scratchfoam pieces that I'd cut away from the green plate and used it like a stamp, taking care to position it just right around the little wren.









And here is the completed print.....