Last week, I spent a couple of afternoons making prints from blocks I first started over a year ago. I had printed a few artist proofs, but wasn’t completely satisfied how they looked and put them aside to tweak later. I finally got around to printing them again and I’m happy how they turned out!
The first of the two blocks I printed is an image of a tabletop hockey goalie. If you’re of a certain age group (yup, older!), you might remember the joy and hours of fun playing tabletop hockey in the basement rec room. As long as you have a friend (to play against), cool parents (it’s loud and there’s lots of cursing!) and the space to play it, you’re set! I’ve owned several versions of this nostalgic game, from the helmet-less and mask-less, two dimensional players of the 60’s and 70’s, to my most recent game (still in my basement), the Wayne Gretzky model, with 3D players, working time clock, plexiglass and I choice of more teams… Well, I guess the Gretzky model isn’t so new (he was on the Kings at the time), I’m not sure if they look much different now, but I would love to own one of those dome arcade versions. Anyways, I’ve been fascinated and obsessed about the game and I still prefer the old-school earlier models where all the players faces and stances all look the same. My tribute to the game, is the tabletop goalie that I drew from an early model back before they were licensed to use “real” NHL teams, no idea about this 3-star logo on the front of his jersey.
I starting the printing process using black ink, but about halfway through switched to red, to add some colour and variation. I didn’t clean the black off the block, but instead continued to roll the red ink over top of the black. I like the effect and if you look at the photo of all the prints (printed in order, left to right), you can see how the colour gradually gets more redder towards the end of the run. I may make more with different colours at some point, but for now that’s it. Oh and I did another image the next day, to be continued…