I had several carved flower blocks from previously printed cards. I used them in addition to these eight new blocks. All of these flowers grow in our gardens. I find the drawing process very satisfying.
I go over the drawings with a Sharpee pen once I have transferred the image to the block. This facilitates the carving process.
Carving the Daylily. This is my favorite of the new blocks. Consequently, I selected it for the cover image.
I used Cougar Natural, 100 pound text weight paper. It is a nice durable paper for a calendar Here it is cut, stacked, and ready for printing.
I printed the Poppy for the month of June. This is one of the flowers from the Blue Sky Botanicals card set.
The calendar cover using wood type for the title - Flower Power! I love the chartreuse green I used for the Spring months.
The completed calendar showing all twelve months. I really love how it turned out. The metal perpetual calendar form never disappoints. It printed beautifully!
I printed my 2023 calendar a few weeks ago. Flowers from our garden inspired the imagery. I learned a fair amount when printing last year’s calendar and made a few changes in format and process this year. I carved on larger blocks (3”x4”) than last year and used a variety of colors for the mats (instead of one color for all twelve months). I believe the resulting calendar is stronger in many ways.
Detail of drawings.
The coneflower is one of my favorite flowers. They are a bit tedious to carve but fun as well!
I printed a colored mat for each month of the year. This blue was for the months of December, January, and February.
The Lenten rose is the flower for the month of January. This image shows the set up on the press for printing each month.
I printed another favorite for November - the Zinnia. Notice that I was able to print both the text and the image block at the same time. This sped up the printing and limited the number of runs through the press to two runs per month.
This image shows the carved blocks I used. I have been carving relief blocks for some time now. I have decided the gray linoleum is easier to carve than the tan colored linoleum. It is a bit less hard and brittle.