I wanted to come up with a block print design for the old American idiom “Pushing up Daisies”. I’ve actually been surprised by the number of people that haven’t heard of this old saying. Maybe it’s more of a southern thing. It means dead and buried. The elders used to claim that concentrated patches of daisies would grow over the graves of the deceased. I think it just sounds cool.

For my block prints, I like to use linoleum. Linoleum is a lot easier to work with than wood. They say that the lifespan of linoleum is up to 10 years before the linoleum itself starts to degrade. I haven’t gotten to that point but my blocks are still going strong.

My first step in the process of creating a design is to sketch out a simple idea. I like to keep the composition simple because I know that I’ll be carving out all the negative space and detailed illustrations for block printing can be a recipe for pain and frustration. But, by all means, push yourself.