For my second attempt at block printing I went with a ginkgo leaf because I thought the irregular veins would be fun to carve and look nice with the slightly angular / irregular lines from carving a block. The process felt loose and fun and I’m really happy with the finished stamp.
New skills: n/a
Lessons: Take time and carve outlines carefully. Re-carving a previously carved line can be challenging due to the softness of the rubber.
There’s a real art/science to properly loading a brayer with ink. I don’t think I’ve gotten the knack yet. Checking to see if the entire stamp has a sheen from wet ink is an effective way to see if the block/stamp has been evenly loaded.
Be careful when pressing/rubbing the back of the block to transfer the ink to the paper, because it’s really easy to shift the stamp and create fuzzy lines.
What I’d do differently: Experiment with placing the paper on the stamp vs. stamp on the paper, to see how that impacts how clean the lines are / how much the stamp shifts on the paper.
Try adjusting the carving depth in the negative space around the stamp in order to experiment with having more artifacts (i.e. random marks of ink around the main shape)