RMW Ramblings

A Wilmington Flower Market Memory   In earlier years, the Wilmington Flower Market was preceded by a rotogravure supplement to to Wilmington Journal Every Evening with ads in support of the event. Most were photos of the business owners, patrons, and staff on site. Here is my great-aunt Reba (center, behind the counter) at Steinle's on King St in a clipping my mother saved from the early 1950s. The sepia tone is typical of gravure ink of that time. Mom didn't save the caption, so I can't identify anyone else.  

  Cards of Christmas Past Transition to Computer Prints Around the end of the 20th century I wanted to do Christmas cards with more detail and color than were practical with the various techniques we had been using.  Fine line-work and multiple colors were too tedious in block print or screen print for ephemeral Christmas cards, and our mailing list had become longer.  I switched to giclée printing, the artsy word for inkjet printing.  At the same time, we moved from traditional Christmas themes to nostalgic local and family holiday subjects.  The cards were composed as line drawings or paintings, scanned, and then adjusted and modified in Photoshop.  Here's one of the earliest, from 2000, a bird's eye view of our house and its immediate neighborhood circa 1900... And here's the text... The view was drawn in pencil, then scanned.  The line drawing was converted to blue via Photoshop, and I used Photoshop to add the spot colors.

Cards of Christmas Past Foam Sheet Prints  A few times in the 1990s I printed Christmas cards by a technique I devised that is a variation on linoleum block printing. I glued thin sheets (about 1/8 inch) of closed cell polyolefin foam to blocks of wood and cut out the image outline with an Exacto knife, them peeled away the non-printing areas.  This is much easier than cutting a linoleum block.  The block is then inked and pressed on the paper.   Here's  the 1995 card, an angel printed in iridescent ink on parchment paper... And here is a card with a dove, and the printing block...  In 2019 I used the same technique to print sets of cork coasters as Christmas gifts for my brothers.  The Christmas ball ornaments on the deer head were printed with Q-Tips.  The image references a family tradition where my mother decorated a taxidermy deer head in the living room for the holidays, a tradition continued by my brother Anson and wife Marie who inherited...

  Cards of Christmas Past A Magus on Camel The magus (wise man) on camel back returns here against a pattern of stars morphing into palms.  Printed by Xerox copier.  An exercise in graphic design.

      In 1979 the Wise Men or Magi were arriving on our card.  Printed from one screen with different inks, staggered, in three printings displaced for effect.

  Cards of Christmas Past Awake!   For Christmas 1974 I again did a serigraphic print.  Above is the front of the card.  Inside is a more elaborate scene.   The card was printed all on one side of standard 8½ x 11 inch cardstock.  Then by folding the card in thirds the mountain sunrise becomes the inside of the card.  it then fits a standard #10 envelope. Here's the full sheet, unfolded... The center section becomes the back of the card.  It has the year and a version of our family monogram star.  You can see, it could be folded to make the mountain scene the front and the dove the inside.  

  Cards of Christmas Past The Magi In 1966 we were now living in Wilmington and I was still printing with linoleum block cuts. This card, no longer monochrome, was printed in four stampings. Multiple printing steps and multiple colors. The three magi were printed with the same linocut with different inks, phthalo blue, phthalo green, and (the middle figure) a blend. The star was printed with  a separate small linoleum block.   Here's the magus printing block...     Earlier, our 1964 linocut card was still printed in a single color but I added some golden rays with a pen...     With this text inside, the printing block reversed here for readability...    About the same time, I began printing a family monogram on the envelope flap for the card mailing...    We'll be transitioning to serigraphic printed cards next.