King Protea Block Print

A few weeks ago our little family was finally able to visit the islands. We have never been but every single one of our family members have, which gets a bit depressing after a while. In fact my brother in law is from Oahu and so my sister and her children have been going every other year for years. My nieces talk about ice shave like it's as common as a 7-11 slurpie.

While we were there on Maui, we stopped off at the Kula Botanical Gardens and though it was off season for many of the plants we enjoyed it immensely. One of the flowers I have seen only in pictures is the Protea which I completely fell in love with. I wasn't home but a day and got to work on it!

I chose to use linoleum blocks for this design and I just love the results!

First I design the look I want, trace it onto the block and carve the negative out. Then, using block printing ink in black I roll on the ink, lay the paper over it and press with a barren made of bamboo. When they have all dried on my very advanced system of twine on my wood clothes drying rack, I hand paint each one with watercolor.

I do love the results that painting each one by hand gives they flowers. They are in the SHOP now but are limited to only 8 prints since I prefer to work in very small batches.

Alert! This is not an actual print. Just using up the rest of the ink on a scrap of paper to clean off the block.

Next in line is this little print featuring Mount Hood. They are drying on the rack as I type and I hope to complete them by the end of the week but this glorious spring sunshine keeps me wandering outside to garden! We Oregonians have to grab the opportunities when we can.