Embroidered Collage

I needed a hand-pulled print for a Spring-themed swap and decided to do a butterfly.  I picked an interesting one from a Dover Pictura book and sketched it in the upper left of the grid.  I knew that would only give me so much understanding of what would happen when I carved, based on past experience.  So then I did the butterfly on the upper right - first shading the entire area in with a 6B pencil and then using a kneaded eraser to remove sections.

  I knew that I could get a little more detail when I carved the soft block, but I still basically followed the shapes I had set up in the sketch.  I stamped the image in the middle right block for a record.  The carved block itself and one of the prints for the swap are shown in the second picture.  I used a purple metallic stamp pad because I've had such a frustrating time with Speedball's block printing ink.  I can never get a thin enough layer brayered down on the block that it really looks good when printed.

I continued to elaborate on the theme in the grid in my sketchbook and did an enlarged version of the original Dover design in the upper portion, trying to capture the rhythm of the patterning.  It felt really good to be doing sketchbook work again.  I also liked using the Prismacolor Art Stix as my primary drawing medium.  The mark is wider and I feel like I can draw a bit looser with the rectangular stick than with the usual colored pencil.