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Continued from Page 21
PHOTOS BY NANCY MCCARTHY
Lynn Murray Albright, of Cannon Beach, displays the sea star she has carved onto a linoleum
block at a recent 45-minute workshop in Imprint Gallery.
Terri Churdash
rolls ink over her
linoleum block.
The ink is distrib-
uted evenly on
the roller by first
rolling it on a
glass plate.
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Instructor Alisa Vernon puts a linoleum block, carved by work-
shop participant Lynn Murray Albright, on a platform in front
of the press.
Once the square of ink on
the glass reached a velvety
sheen, Vernon knew the roll-
er had a thin, even layer of
ink and was ready to roll over
Murray Albright’s block. The
block was then placed on the
platform in front of the press.
Next, Vernon took a
square of cotton rag pa-
per, rough on one side and
smooth on the other; the
paper easily absorbs the ink
on the block. She placed the
rough side over the block,
covered the block and paper
with heavy felt and turned
a handle on the press that
moved a large roller smooth-
ly over the felt and the block.
When Vernon uncovered the
paper beneath the felt, she
revealed a print of Murray
Albright’s sea star.
“It has a magic quality,”
Murray Albright said.
“It’s like a surprise,” Car-
rier added.
‘Positive and
negative space’
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Lynn Murray Albright, of
Cannon Beach, began work
on a sea star, carefully outlin-
ing the star-shaped legs with
the blade making the wider
lines, and filling in the legs
with smaller lines.
“I go out and look at
the wall display (of artists’
prints), and I have a greater
appreciation of their work,”
Murray Albright said.
The class had been on
Kathy Carrier’s to-do list for
a long time, and the Arch
Cape resident brought her
Portland friend, Terri Chur-
dash, along.
“Cannon Beach has
needed something like this,”
said Carrier, who etched a
cup with rising steam into her
linoleum block. “I had my art
therapy today.”
Meanwhile, Churdash, a
quilter, knitter and weaver,
created a quilt pattern resem-
bling the inside of a butter
churn.
After the blocks were
carved, Vernon demonstrated
how to prepare the ink to be
rolled onto the block. Wear-
ing rubber gloves, Vernon put
down a strip of soy oil-based
ink on a glass plate, dipped a
roller into the ink and rolled
the ink onto the plate.
She listened as the roller
went over the plate. As the
ink adhered to the roller,
Vernon said the sound was
like “skin pulling off of a hot
leather seat.”
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Once Churdash rolled
the ink onto her roller and
pressed the paper onto her
block, she seemed pleased
with her product: a large
square containing 54 smaller
squares and thin lines within
the squares.
The workshop was a
learning experience for
Churdash.
“It reminds me to keep
thinking about positive and
negative spaces, especially
the negative space,” she
said. “You have to think
where you want the ink to
go, and where you want no
ink to go.”
An elementary school
teacher, Churdash said the
technique would be fun to
try in her classes.
“It would be a really cool
thing” for students to do to
illustrate what they learn
about Oregon history, she
said.
“They might be able to
draw a whale beached up in
Cannon Beach — wouldn’t
that be cool? Or Fort
Clatsop, a canoe, an elk, or
salt cairn buckets (used by
Lewis and Clark’s corps).
Wouldn’t that be a great
display on the wall?” CW