The Mad Hatter Tea Party

Yesterday was the Mad Hatter Tea Party at the UCF Library. Amanda Richards was on the committee that organized this fundraiser and she asked me to help out with creating Tenniel inspired linocuts for a print-your-own-print station. I, of course, said yes. Amanda and I each carved two of the four linocuts we had available, which was more painstaking than normal since the cross hatching from Tenniel's drawings is not a very intuitive technique for carving in relief. However, we struggled through and I was pleasantly surprised with how well they translated into linoleum. Especially Amanda's work- this was her first time EVER carving and printing and they look as good as I could have done them. She is a testament to anyone who is on the fence about getting into relief printmaking. We decided to depict the four characters (Alice, The White Rabbit, The Mad Hatter, and The Red Queen) in a frame reminiscent of playing cards and gave them each their own suit.

We had a good crowd at the print station - as in Amanda and I never got to sit down - and it seemed like everyone that came over had a good time. There were also several people intersted in possibly doing the linocut process from start to finish, and I'm hoping that will translate into students for the next Not Your Mama's Print Workshop on December 2nd.