Design, print and send fifty postcards

I posted two more today, to Chuq and Ruth. I still have one editioned one and a proof from this batch to go out, if anyone wants one. This entry explains how that works.

As soon as I finish recovering from a minor fall, I’ll finish my second reduction linocut postcard edition. As 43T gave me the idea in the first place, and massive amounts of encouragement to carry it out, I’d like to get some postcards out to people here who’d like one, as an expression of gratitude. Let’s see if this works. Hopefully I’m not biting off more than I can chew.

At the rate of one a year, this would only take me another 48 years to complete. Hm.

A first proof of the second postcard is complete. And I’ve got a reduction linocut of a third down to 2 or 3 stages left. So there is hope that my life will be long enough to finish this goal, given good health.

I also already have an idea brewing for the next one. I like postcards.

Just need to clean up some registration marks, trim some edges, and draw the postcard lines on the backs. I had results of mixed quality. I need to get serious about registration—make and use a registration frame, most likely. And I’m just beginning to find my way with the transparent medium, which I’ve never used for block printing before. I think with experience I’ll be able to get some spooky or delicate effects with it.

I’ll have to spray them with fixative when they’re dry, if I want to post them as they are. I haven’t done that with prints before and it seems sort of wrong to me.

The Gutai group once raised funds by selling handmade postcards from a fake vending machine. That’s SO cool (and somehow so Japanese). I wish I had a fake vending machine to sit in, and 49 more editions of postcards to sell from it.

Detail from #1 shown.

I borrowed this goal from Cerra, because it was just too cool to pass up.

Only thing is, I think Canada Post charges the same for postcards as for letters. Never mind! Postcards are intriguing. Hello from imaginary or impossible places. Landscapes that are futuristic, or dystopian, or absurd.

I want to do fifty different editions of five, in at least four different print media. I’m going to start with ten new reduction linocuts in 4 or 5 colors. What other goals can I shamelessly purloin from people more creative than me? Can’t think about it now. Must go carve.