I just repainted our dining room, and I want to paint a frieze of grape vines around the walls, near the floor.  I debated grapevines vs. blackberries, and decided on grapevines because grape leaves are interesting, and blackberry leaves are harder to stamp.  I had hoped that I could carve grape leaf stamps out of linoblock, but unfortunately acrylic wall paint doesn’t print well on a textured wall with something as hard as linoblock.  So, plan B was to get some foam from JoAnn’s.  They used to make a lot of foam stamps, and they still make some, but not anything like the design I wanted.  I printed the linoblock on a piece of paper and taped it to the stamp, then cut it out with scissors and an exacto knife.  Foam does not cut easily.  That is, it cuts easily enough, but this thick foam doesn’t allow your scissors to make tight turns, and I had to learn the hard way that it’s better to press straight down with the knife blade rather than slicing, as it tends to rip the paper template.

I made my own stamps for use with this mural, so I hope that the ones I made today will also work well.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a baren, or some kind of printing press if I’m going to make invitations and Christmas cards.– Too time consuming otherwise.

Pears are next, but I haven’t even started to cut them yet, so it could take a week or more.

Here’s what I did with the tomato sketch I drew yesterday.

I hope to add color with some markers, but I have to wait for the block printing ink to dry.  Look for pear and pepper linocuts in a few days!