Yesterday the choir I sing with performed the song In Flanders Field, which commemorates a WWI burial ground in Belgium, and the idea for this print popped into my mind. I had a great time making this, partly because it only took about 3 hours. (I'm still struggling with time issues.) My process was a little different for this print, so I want to describe it briefly. First I decided on the size of the print and the paper. I cut some paper down to size and left it dry. Then I cut the image area and kento on two blocks. The first block I left alone, with no carving, so I could use it like a plate for monoprinting. Then I drew the headstones on the second block and quickly carved them. I carved the bottoms lightly so it would look almost like grass at the base of each stone. Then I took a print from that block and transferred the same image with carbon paper to the uncarved block so I could see where the stones would be on the final. I mixed up a few colors and got some brushes ready for printing. I sprayed water on the uncarved block and applied 3 colors using various brushes. Then I took an impression on dry paper. Here's how it looked:
Immediately after taking that impression, I prepared the other block with black ink and took the second impression. That was the process for each of the 10 prints. I cleaned off the "monoprint" block every other print so the colors wouldn't mix too much on the block and get muddy.
