Since I’ve been slacking like no other when it comes to any studio work (with the exception of custom orders of course) I figured this weekend would be a good time to get back into it. And then I came down with a fever. Apparently feeling like I’ve been hit by a bus is a great motivator, because I got way more work done on Sunday with the fever, than Saturday.

I did nothing on Saturday except sulk around the house in a bad mood. I’m trying to make it so this isn’t a cloud that hangs over me until I leave for Japan, because it’s gonna make for a pretty miserable August if that’s the case. Unfortunately, sometimes I have to realize that my judgment can be impaired by various things, and people can just plain suck.

Moving on to more interesting and important things here though!

I got a package in the mail last week containing samples of Colormaker’s new ink line called Permaprint Premium for me to mess around with.

Meant for printing on paper as opposed to Permaset Aqua which is for fabrics, there’s one immediate difference right out of the box. Permaprint is much thinner than Permaset. Think, the consistency of thick pancake batter versus the consistency of ketchup, for lack of better descriptive terms…

I soaked a piece of wool in it to give myself a little bit of a stamp surface for some block printing. It took to the wool really easily because of the consistency, which is a major bonus. Permaset has to be somewhat diluted either through the use of salt or water, neither of which is ideal.

Here’s a small sampling of some preliminary stamp work I did with it. I like it, but you can see in some cases the stamp (yellow) was too saturated and slipped on the page. It’s also a little globby in some spots, but I blame user error on that one. Still haven’t found a good way to ink the blocks, and I’m not altogether sure I’m carving them out of the best material either.

I played with it a bit more later on when I was printing a fabric run. The first pull was pretty lazy and didn’t cover much. This was also done on a lightweight watercolor paper, which doesn’t appear to be the best substrate for this ink.

A second pull came out better, but if you look closely you can see why a heavily textured and absorbent paper may not be the best choice for the ink. It bled considerably at the edges. When it dried though, it had a beautiful finish to it that I fell in love with. Maybe I can forgive the bleeding?

Overall it’s looking pretty positive so far, but I’ll reserve the ultimate score for when I set up and pull the prints properly, not half-assed because I had a print run going already. I love the fact that it’s a “Perma” product, and of course that it’s as eco-friendly and solvent free as Permaset is, so I’d say there’s a good likelihood I’ll add it to my arsenal once I get serious about paper prints.

Which will be soon people. It will be soon. I have some awesome templates in the works.

Speaking of which, here’s a sneak peek at some new stuff.

Hope you all had an awesome weekend!