tortilla printing press

Yesterday we brought the Tortilla Printing Press to Artschmart to try some more playful printmaking experiments. Printmaking at it’s most basic is ink plus pressure, and there are a lot of ways to do it (I once made a pair of printmaking shoes that left prints behind when you wore them) Using a tortilla press is a great way to apply pressure, and it works really well for small-scale prints.

This is a project that I first tried many years ago with my long-time collaborator Ryan Jenkins, back in my Wonderful Idea Co. days. It was also the origin of the Peep Show Art Gallery. We had a pop-up printmaking workshop where we used the tortilla press to make tiny art that we installed in the Peep Show art gallery, and we also put up some of the tiny posters around the neighborhood.

It was fun to bring this idea back, and at Artschmart to print some of the stamps we made last week at Marie’s prayer flag workshop, including Squid’s lovely death’s head moth