My Block Printing Journey Part 2

Alyson Makes Stuff

May 27

This is a continuation of a previous post. Read it here if you missed it.

My work with block printing was full of failure with a huge learning curve. The perfectionist in me is crying inside. But I ignore her tears. Perfection has been at the helm much too long. I push on. It takes 10,000 hours to be good at something.

Then I get an idea. One more cost effective and easier to control. I can make stencils! I am a proud owner of a Cricut Explore Air 2. As an owner, I am ALWAYS looking for reasons to use it. So I bought some mylar stencil blanks from Michael’s. I had to enlarge my original artwork using Illustrator and make it suitable for a stencil. Then I let my Cricut do the work of cutting the stencil. I started with my “Make It Work” artwork and my “Seek Yourself” design.

“Seek Yourself” hand printed version. © 2019 Alyson Toone All Rights Reserved

From the first painting, the stencil was so much easier to use. There was some bleeding but I could easily adjust my painting technique to avoid that.

Yours truly wearing “Seek Yourself” printed by Spoonflower on poly crepe de chine. © 2019 Alyson Toone All Rights Reserved

The continuous print of my “Seek Yourself” design looks great. I was already worried of messing up the repeat with block printing. The clear stencil made it so much easier. The “Seek Yourself” design is also available in a different version on Spoonflower if you are interested in buying it. I feel comfortable creating hand printing yardage this way. The sublimation print version on Spoonflower (seen in the adjacent photo) has a very clean, smooth quality. The hand printed version is gritty and organic. I love both versions! Something for everyone.

If you are interested in hand printed yardage let me know. You can also contact me if you would like to license this print or another.