printmaking love

This swap is for lovers of printmaking of all kinds: etching, collographs, linocut, hand-cut stamps, chine colle, and any other type of printing you can think of.

The theme for this swap is THE OPENING LINE OF A SONG. So many songs have crackers of opening lines, and I do not know anybody that hates music. Even songs with bland or ordinary opening lines offer themselves for a visual to be made of them. Your print does not have to have the words of the song, nor even identify the song, though it can if you wish it to.

To save on postage I'm limiting the size to postcard-sized paper, though the image may be smaller. This means it will hopefully fit in an envelope, with an accompanying piece of cardboard to prevent postal damage. I've already begun mine, and I chose to do a 9x9 cm (approx 3.5x3.5 inch) image on 12x16 cm (approx 4.75x6.5 inch) Japanese fine paper. Good paper is important, as is an original image for this swap. Everyone deserves to get some beautiful art from the people they are swapping with. Being small pieces, I do not think it is too much to ask for participants to use quality paper...

Please annotate your image in the typical way, with a number of the edition (eg 4/10), title in inverted commas (eg "First Step on a Stairway to Heaven"), signature, and year (month optional), written in pencil below the image. If your personal practice is a stamped logo instead of a signature then feel free to do that. I know it means a little more work, but I'd like it if you could include a separate note with the piece saying what song and artist you chose, and maybe what the first line was. Then the person may be able to listen should they wish to, and will have a better understanding of the piece.

After a concerted effort to find out what people wanted, I've settled on 6 partners, even though I would've preferred swapping with each person involved in the swap. Printers generally, apart from monoprinters, have no trouble doing editions, so only the postage was going to be an issue. That said, I would still like to swap with everyone in the swap, so if we get more than 7 in this swap and you do not get me for a partner I would appreciate it if you could send me one of yours as a RAK, or if you want, I'll send you one of mine back also. Please pm me for address info. Regardless of that, PLEASE DON'T JOIN THIS SWAP IF YOU ARE UNSURE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO COMPLETE THE SWAP.

On the advice of an experienced swapper, I'm asking for a minimum rating of 5.0, but if you are less than that or an unrated person, please pm me to let me know why I should allow you in. I seriously understand that sometimes things cannot be helped, or stopped, especially if someone had it in for you. And we all had to start some time too. I'm no NAZI, but art swaps are important to those involved, so I'll do my best to make sure that this swap goes without problems. So it will be up to me if you are not a 5.0 as to whether or not you can join.

28 Nov last day to sign up, mail out by 10 Dec. I'm hoping this will not encroach too much on people's Christmas organisation. And there is nothing stopping you from working on it before the sign-up last day arrives!

Here's hoping I've not forgotten any information, but if you need more, just post a comment, or pm me if it is a personal thing.

Start thinking of songs, and get creative!