Three Little Fish - A6 Riso Printed Greetings Card

A Riso Printed A6 greetings card designed by printmaker and artist, Susan Yeates.

This design features three cute fishes with big eyes and little smiles in black set onto on top of a red circle and is one of a set of four cards in this collection.

Use it as a notecard, thank you card, birthday card or simply frame the front as a unique piece of art for your walls.  

Details

Designed and printed in the UK onto 300gsm context natural recycled card using soy-based, non toxic inks.

Card size: A6 (landscape) with a brown C6 kraft envelope. Each card is wrapped in a biodegradable cello wrapper. 

The card is blank inside. 

This card was created from original block prints hand carved and printed by Susan. The design was sketched in pencil, transferred to a set of blocks, carved by hand and then printed onto paper. This has then been converted into a Riso Printed card. 

These are only available direct from the artist - exclusive art cards by Susan Yeates. 

About the Collection “Fishes Over the Sun”

This collection of greetings cards features block printed fish designs set over a red sun, drawing upon traditional Japanese styles of woodcut printing as well as other relief print methods. The “Fishes Over the Sun” collection was created as part of a print project in early 2021 where Susan created 100 individual hand carved blocks in 100 days. These four fish designs started life as simple pencil sketches that were transferred onto rubber blocks ready for carving. Using u-shaped and v-shaped gouges Susan carved out the details by hand and then printed onto a fine Japanese paper (washi), experimenting with colours and layering. Just these four fish designs were selected from a whole range of prints created during this time to turn in to high quality Riso Print greetings cards. 

What is Riso Print?

Risograph is an environmentally friendly method of printing using soy-based, non toxic inks. It blends elements of screenprinting and photocopying and each print will have its own small variations & individual look. It began in Japan in the 1980s by the Riso Kagaku Corporation and appeals to illustrators, graphic designers and printmakers (like myself) for its spot-colour print process, vibrant colours, quirky style and ability to layer colour. It works as a wonderful way to reproduce block prints and linocuts, whilst maintaining the look and feel of a hand carved block.

What is Block Print?

Block printing is a type of relief printing created by using a rubber block as the printing plate that you cut into using metal gouges. With relief printing, the material that is removed does not print, therefore making it a negative mark-making technique (as in it’s a little back-to-front). Woodcut, wood engraving and linocut are also relief printing methods as is potato printing that you may have done as a kid or rubber stamping where you buy pre-cut stamps and ink pads from craft shops.

Curious? I teach a Block Printing for Beginners online course which you can access here: https://coursecraft.net/c/blockprinting