Tiny Block Challenge Part II

         Blow the fanfare!  I completed 30 tiny rubber block prints in one month, thus accomplishing my own unofficial challenge to stay engaged - and use up some of the many little scraps of rubber I had accumulated.  I’m pretty pleased with the breadth of variety, making at least one print for each of the rough categories into which I divide my art on my web site (animals, plants, people, places, stories, and Interesting Things).  But the tiny format certainly lends itself better to simple single items than to sweeping vistas or complicated scenes.  At any rate, here are the tiny prints from the second half of the month:

16. Birdhouse

17. Vogelhuisje

18. birdhouse (Japanese)

19. Cementos, Quintana Roo

20. Dalahäst

21. birdhouse (Mayan)

22. birdhouse (Russian)

23. coy cat

24. Mudskipper

25. Venus Fly Trap

26. Lagopus

27. Llama calligraphy

28. Siren Song

29. Rocking Chair

30. Faithful Friend

        A few notes on the printing of some of these…  * The birdhouses were all printed together as a single piece, and I added to it a bird and a post, (which were bonus blocks as far as the challenge was concerned.  The bird is only about a half inch square).  * For the mudskipper and the Venus fly trap I started out printing in colors, but decided in the end that you really can’t beat black, so those are mixed editions with some in each color.  * The llama was inspired by Islamic calligraphy and was an attempt to make the word into the thing.  * The siren and the final little girl were both done with an eye to illustrating short stories, and they will probably end up as parts of larger scenes for those illustrations.  For the little girl I plan to do the extra bits on the computer, but I may fool around with collage for the siren.  We’ll see.

        So for now I’m declaring myself finished.  I still have plenty more items on my list of ideas, and I still have plenty more small scraps of rubber, but I also have plenty of other things that need doing.  If nothing else, it’s going to be an awful lot of work just to get a full selection of these matted and framed before my next sale, which is less than a month away!  I also need to finish scanning these and getting them up onto my web site.  (The page of Tiny Prints is here, and will be updated as time permits.)

        Then there’s all the other stuff… 

Remember how this challenge started because summer is supposed to be a slow season?  Well, of course I’m as busy as ever.  I’ll be teaching kids’ printmaking classes for the second week in July, and participating in the Linda Plaut Festival of the Arts on July 22.  I’m also working on writing and submitting a steady trickle of short stories and poetry, so I continue to find that I simply don’t possibly have the time to do a lot of housework!

        Back when I started working more on the short stories (instead of novels), I found the smaller bite-sized pieces very refreshing.  (Revisit a post about that here).  Well, if short stories and normal block prints are “bite-sized,” that must make these tiny prints no more than nibble-sized!  Amuse-bouche art.  I’ve definitely enjoyed my tiny challenge, and will try to do more of these tiny prints as part of the usual mix, without waiting to set myself a special assignment.

        What’s your favorite?  Or what would you have done instead?  Well, don’t just tell me - go give it a try for yourself!

[Pictures: All block prints and photos by AEGN, 2023.]