Texture of the Week: Printing with Wooden Letter Blocks

While this is a new blog post for my "Texture of the Week" series, the video and cards below are a couple years old. But, I still love them and I hope you will to.

I found a vintage tub of wooden letter blocks at a thrift store when my son was 2 or 3 years old. Even if my kids aren't playing with them anymore, I still love these blocks and can't imagine parting with them just yet. 

I've turned a few into ornaments by drilling holes and stringing them together, usually combining blocks with the letters or numbers for my kid's initials and birth dates.

But, I've used many more as a texture tool for gel printing. Truthfully, I don't use much identifiable text in my work. It just isn't my thing, but I do occasionally create text based collage papers like this....

One of the tricky things about printmaking is having to think in reverse when you want to print words, BUT with the blocks I don't have to worry about the direction of the letters.

When I press a block onto the surface of a loaded gel plate, the impression of the letter will appear backwards in the paint. But, when I pull the print the letter will be the correct direction again on the paper.

I DO have to remember to stamp the words in reverse or right to left, i.e. Y R R E M if I want the print to say M E R R Y. Make sense?

This would work with stamps that are individual letters as well, since I know not everyone has an old tub of wooden children's blocks lying about.

I ended up using a combination of red and green "Merry" collage papers for a few different Christmas card ideas...

Hope this provides some new holiday ideas for your gel printing!