Rainy Day Rainbow Roll

I used to work very small -- 6"x4" -- and while I loved that size, it had too many limitations for the work I wanted to do. I started the larger sizes (9x7) about 13 years ago, and it has challenges of it's own.

On the small blocks, I could easily do a rainbow roll, vertically or horizontally. My largest brayer is only 6 inches, so if I'm doing one, I need to be creative about it. The biggest problem is that -- for the last couple of years -- I have, until right now, been using a large block with registration grooves cut into the edges. While this is good for registration -- REALLY good -- it is also very hard to get full coverage with the roller.

I finally built a jig that allows me to pop out the block to ink it, which means excellent coverage, and more rainbow rolls.

Rainbow rolls allow a printmaker to put multiple colors down, and also to use the gradation to show atmosphere, distance, shape. This should be a huge gain in my work.