A belated Chinese New Year card

Here's the front garden by the entry, after the dead plants have been removed and the sculptures put right side up again. Daffodils and tulips are up, the viburnum (on the left) has been blooming continuously since last October, the hellebore have been blooming for about a month or so.



Spent the afternoon laying out my Chinese New Year card (Year of the Pig) and started printing after dinner. Here's the first layer; I know, not too exciting. I wanted a framework for the top layer of text that will be printed last. This was a mixture of inks left over from printing Calypso (watercolor brown, bronze, plus some Dark brown). I stored all the leftover ink in Altoid tins, and they're keeping really well.



The 2nd layer, on the drying rack. This is the background text. It's a detail from an old manuscript. I love how they look all laid out in rows. I'm easily amused. The same ink as I used for the 1st layer, but I added a bit more dark brown and some leftover gold. These inks are just roughly mixed so there's a bit of variation from print to print, and also within a print the colors are variegated. The metallics are also coming through in areas.



A close-up.



Frontal view of the card with the first 2 layers. It's 11pm already; I think I'll print the next (and last) layer tomorrow.



I've printed the backside already, but that's just a bunch of text; no picture. I did find a typo/spello, I guess I'll have to fix that by hand. It's an edition of 88 (for those into Chinese lucky numbers).