These are great ...

Ole Joe With Fangs



Marx as a baby !!!



More on these here: http://www.babymarx.com/?p=73

Thanks for inspiring joyful laughter!

If I were ink people I'd wear these guys one to a shoulder:

I loved them! Thanks for sharing Zap!
So, I know nothing about woodblock prints (and I know you are an expert!!) how do they print with two inks?
Also, I wonder about the motivation behind choosing those characters... to see something other than Aztec motifs and Lucha libre is quite refreshing!
It's great to read this news about my country for a change. And most inspiring that talent is being found and nurtured (even though it could be earlier than highschool).

When we'd make potato or linoleum stamps when I was little you'd just press the carved surface into an ink pad - For multiple color effects I imagine you'd just have to brush the ink on instead.

Ok, that makes sense!

One way is indeed to brush on different colored inks on the different sections of the block this is what i did here http://www.flickr.com/photos/zapatoloco/4558317080/, i've done this when i felt a little lazy. But the traditional Japanese way is to make a different block for each color.

two blocks give this result, orange printed first, then the black block (or key block) which is always last:


nothing wrong with a little mexi-lucha , same principle as the above:


In the case of the babymarx prints case i think they cut a block for the black and a block for the red.

I agree with you Axo, nice to see something other that luchadores, calaveras and mariachis ...Mexico has such a rich and varied culture. These are nonetheless very Mexican in that the blocks themselves are inspired by the Taller de Grafica Popular http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taller_de_Gr%C3%A1fica_Popularand certainly also echo the work of Posada. Mexico also played an interesting part in the history of communism and of revolutionary movements.

There's also a Japanese connection as it was in Japan that artist Pedro Reyes found people brave enough ("A samurai doesn’t know the word impossible") to help realize his vision of a sitcom starring puppets in the role of famous political ideologues of the past. These blocks are representations of the puppets from the show. A rich and complex hybrid of japanese and mexican cultures. No wonder these please me so much.

Thanks for the detailed description!
Yes, thinking of stamps, engravings and wooden blocks in Mexico, you have to think of Posada. Definitely nothing wrong with that!! Yes, we had some very important communists in Mexico: Trotsky, Guevara and Clemente Orozco amongst them. And I wish all this other aspects of our culture would appear more often in pop culture. Not communism but the less known traits and features of our history.

This story about P. Reyes is really interesting. Thanks for letting us know, otherwise I would've never known!!!

I'm so glad to have learned all of the above. Obviously I didn't put a world of thought into my speculations, so it's great to have such a sudden and thorough resource presented on such an interesting topic. Thanks again.

Now somebody else say something!

My pleasure Axolotl,

Of course we can't forget Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo when thinking of art & communism in Mexico. I find it quite interesting that the whole BabyMarx project was carried out in the spirit of the Taller de Grafica Popular: communal workshop, emphasis on the group and subject matter. A beautiful project all in all. Make sure to check out the sitcom with the puppets, you can find links on the babymarx blog and on youtube etc...
Heres a teaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksv4Fy_PyoY&feature=relmfu

Don't worry, Toothaction, you were right about painting on colors. A lot of modern block printers use this technique along with the multi-block approach...whatever works. Even the old Japanese Moku Hanga masters used this approach in certain cases.

P.S. i edited my post to shrink the pictures of my blocks, trying not to hijack the thread and overshadow the kids work