Seriously though, I have a real thing for bears at the moment, Polar bears of course being the hands down winner ever since seeing the handsome fella below in Copenhagen, but grizzlies are just as cute as well. I don't know if its becoming a trend, or if its the influence of having my own grizzly little bear on the way, but either way anything bears is win for me at the moment.
So I wanted to have a dabble at making a lino print for printing on some baby grows. I have had a small experiment into lino printing before, and actually have some good supplies (seriously not an expensive hobby unless you want to buy a lot of inks). So I drew up a handsome bear and transferred the drawing onto a lino cutting block. Then, using the lino cutting tools, I carved him out into this fabulous looking block.
Here comes my warning about lino print carving... keep your fingers out the way! Yes I did slip and push the blade full force into my thumb, not so great when you are using blades which were found at a car boot... so be wary of this.
Once you have cut out your print you use printing inks and a roller to cover the image and pop it only your printing surface. After applying a little bit of pressure to the back of the block you can carefully lift it off and you should be left with a lovely relief image. There are a couple of really simple tutorials on youtube for this so I seriously suggest you go check out how easy this is.
I do think I could do with a bit more practice though! I managed to get a bit too much ink on my roller and it has gone into all the grooves of the print. Because I was printing onto jersey the fabric has gone into the grooves and picked up all the paint which was there, giving me the kind of opposite effect to what I was after, but this really doesn't matter, I think this version worked out great and I am really happy with his little smiley grizzly face :)
I hope you liked this little idea into decorating your own baby grows/onesies. If you want to give this a go yourself then don't stop there... you can use block printing on cards, invitations, t-shirts, bags anything so give it a go yourself.
Edit: I have just booked onto a short lino printing class with a friend as well so hopefully I will be able to hone in my skills and make some even better prints, I will let you know what we make on the night!
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