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Speedy-Carve Block Print from a Family Photo

Tuesday, March 18, 2025 19:04

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This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco’s Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Speedy-Carve Block Print from a Family Photo

Many decades ago, I spent a summer on the coast of Massachusetts, living in a chicken coop converted into a cottage with friends. We spent a lot of time swimming in granite quarries, filling sketchpads with paintings, making still life arrangements with lilacs, and walking on the beach. This speedy-carve block print was inspired by a photo from that summer.

I still use photos taken that year as painting, drawing and printmaking inspiration. Art inspired by a photo taken 45 years ago. Do you ever flip through your family photos, looking for interesting composition, pattern on pattern, high contrast or compelling shapes?

Speedball makes a soft rubber block called Speedy-Carve (*like this*). They are now pink, but they used to be white. This block was gifted to me from a family member who was purging old stuff from her art space. Speedy-Carve is easier to cut than linoleum. It works best to hand transfer a print from this material, rather than using a press, due to abundant flexibility in the material. But there are caveats….

If You’re New to Art – Take Lots of Photos

During a summer in Rockport, Massachusetts, a friend was visiting our little rented cottage for the weekend. I snapped a photo of her sitting in bed, in front of patterned vintage table cloths and assorted photos thumb-tacked to the walls. Forty five years later, I’m making a relief print from that photo.

You’ve got a camera in your phone. Take a lot of photos. Every day. The rooms you inhabit, the people you’re hanging out with, and the places you visit. Adopt it as a habit. Everything is a potential drawing, painting or printmaking project – for the rest of your life. Document your moments as they fly by.

*Granite Quarries in Massachusetts* filled with water after the mining stopped, and they became stone vessel swimming holes. I spent a summer swimming and making art near this one back in 1980.

I used a pencil, followed by a ball point pen to draw the design on the *Speedy-Carve block*. This 4×6 slab was quite a few years old, so it was a little chipped and dry, but still salvageable. In this photo, I’m in the midst of carving around the drawing with a number 11 exacto knife (*like this one*).

Carving the block outdoors *while camping at Lake Mammoth*.

Speedy Carve Blocks and Multi-Color Printing

I planned to carve one side of the Speedy Carve block to use as a key block, with all the details printed in black in. I used the verso – or back of the block to carve the background shapes in color.

The challenge with this plan was two fold: registration with such a rubbery and flexible block is a bit fussy. And the paper I printed the color background on was not the right choice.

Inking the block on a picnic table outside using my new favorite ink – Cranfield Caligo Safe Wash Relief Ink (*I bought this tube on Amazon*). It dries fast, but not too fast, and it dries permanent so I can watercolor the prints if I want to. The ink is buttery smooth, pigment rich, and it washes up with soap and water.

Back in the studio, mixing a slate blue ink to pull a test print (an Artist’s Proof) to print a cognate on the back of the block. I’ll carve successive shapes on the verso of the block to print the color background before I print the black, detailed key block on top of the color prints.

Test printing the key block on a very smooth sheet of Arches 88 paper. In retrospect, I should have used this paper for the edition. It has *no sizing*, and it is super smooth, so it accepts ink beautifully.

Making adjustments to the key block based on a third artist proof print.

Printing the color background in stages from the back of the block, using *calico safe wash printmaking inks* and stencils cut from newsprint.

Almost ready to print the key block in black over the color background layers.

Making Color Notes on a vellum study, while considering what the key block will cover with black ink

The inked block, ready to print with a wooden baren onto the color prints.

Pulling the first print, and noticing right away that the texture of the paper’s surface tooth is resulting in a pebbled coverage on the back ink.

The flexibility of the speedyCarve block can make registration a challenge when you’re doing a multi-pass print. Pressing the back of the paper into the inked block with a baren moves the rubber of the block, which results in mis-aligned registration.

Another risk with multiple passes using speedy carve is staggered prints. You can see in these examples that the block touched the paper in slightly different contact points as I was rubbing the paper into the block with the baren. Part of the issue was the texture of the paper I used, so that’s my bad. I should have chosen a very smooth printmaking paper, which would have required less pressure to get the ink to transfer from the black to the paper.

Three paper samples: on the left is super smooth Arches 88. It has *no sizing* in it, so I wouldn’t recommend it for adding watercolor, but it’s superb for hand printing in single color. On the right towards the bottom is BFK Rives paper, which has a little less “tooth” than Arches. You can still see a little stagger in the stripes of the pajamas, but it’s not egregious. On the top, I printed on Arches Cover stock, which has quite a bit of tooth.

From a stack of color backgrounds, *this one* is the only color print that took the key block (black/final ink) without staggering or mis-alignment. Lessons learned: focus on the best paper for the job/tools, rather than using up a stack of paper close at hand.

A stack of prints that didn’t make the cut. Onto the next project.

Real Life Art Studio Results

Social media would have us believe that every artist produces only flawless work, and the rest of us are bumbling along like a cart missing a wheel on a rocky, sloped path. Curated instagram reels feature every creator’s highlight reel, with no mistakes or hiccups.

I promise you that we all make mistakes. This print should have been an edition of 25 or so, but from two little choices – the block material and the paper – the attempt at an edition failed. I want to be clear that the mistake was not in either the paper or the Speedy Carve – they are both excellent products, and I’ll use them again. I made choices in the nature of this project that lead to the failed edition.

What I learned from this mistake – and that’s what mistakes should be harnessed for – is that Speedy Carve is better for single color prints, and the toothy texture of Arches Cover paper is better used on a press, rather than hand transfer prints where the paper’s texture might prohibit smooth ink transfer.

My husband always spouts the phrase Fail Fast and then Iterate – and I’ll be sure to make those adjustments as I start the next printmaking project.

What are you learning from your own hiccups in your art adventures?

Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S. You can enjoy a perfectly successful speedy carve print project from artist/printmaker Esther Elzinga’s studio here.

a linocut of rabbits in a meadow in process

Art Quote

No human ever became interesting by not failing. The more you fail and recover and improve, the better you are as a person. Ever meet someone who’s always had everything work out for them with zero struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don’t exist. ~ Chris Hardwick

The post Speedy-Carve Block Print from a Family Photo appeared first on Belinda Del Pesco’s Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Source: https://www.belindadelpesco.com/speedy-carve-block-print-from-a-family-photo.html/

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