Organized Labor

After last week's flurry of activity with screen printing, the studio was a complete mess -- differing only slightly from the INCOMPLETE mess it usually is. I've had prints building up for years in drawers, and I finally got things organized in their own individual boxes.

Down deep in the drawer was a packet of old work from 2002 thru 2005, the beginning of my printmaking career. Some of them show hints that I had promise, but most...well, let's just say that the best part of sticking with something even when you know you are NOT good enough is that, eventually, you get to look back and see how far you've come.

So now I'm working on my next wood cut in a nice, neat and organized studio,so grateful for the space and ready toake the most of it. In those early days I was crammed into a tiny bedroom that was broiling in the summer, without a press or much light after sunset. Now I have everything I need -- but I think one thing we've learned in the United States in the last 10 years (2008, and certainly the last two) is that if fortunes can be made overnight, it can all disappear just as fast. So, time to make hay.

Going Green

Just one more color to go. I'm really pleased with the colors and the coverage I'm getting from my Renaissance Graphics ink.

This light green will serve as the base for a darker green. I've had few issues with this print, and I'm surprised a bit because when a large area gets cut away, I am often plagued by ink getting on the block in areas it shouldn't be. Am--am I getting better? Gasp!🤔😁

Under The Dome

I'm warmed up now, and ready to be challenged. This is the first color I printed, a nice light sky blue. I shot it backlit so you can see the detail. I hadn't realized how intricate the lines were going to be until I started drawing it out. Cutting was okay, but I need a new prescription for my glasses.




I should have shot the 2nd color backlit as well! I think you can see the color difference here. There are two grays, one light and one dark. I'm not sure which this one is yet! I will have to make the call after the ink dries. That is the drawback of reduction printing -- you can't play with colors as much. You pretty much have to have your decisions made going in. Not that it couldn't be corrected (see the newt print), but what an unnecessary step. Oh well, the debacle at the beginning of the newt print has left me wary and wiser!

Back & Forth

Years ago I worked in a shop with a talented printmaker who had studied under Frasconi. He showed me a number of his large portrait woodcuts, intricate and beautiful. The backgrounds, however, were just a series of scribbles made with a Steel. He commented that after the portrait was complete, he got bored. I get that, and the struggle with background is real.

I have struggled with background since I was in grade school. How tedious to detail what's BEHIND your subject. And too much detail camouflages the subject.

Luckily, I also study cartooning, and that has helped me immensely. Take any cartoon, and you will see most are not detailed, and instead they use spare symbols to impress upon a viewer the IDEA of what the symbols represent. Three rectangles in a blank field is a wall. A squiggle represents water, a few jagged spikes may be grass.

To that sensibility, I added an old technique I learned in kindergarten, but I've found traces it's roots to the surrealists: scribble drawings. I used the same technique with the Newt print, and found that it gives much depth. I imagine you will see more of this as I go.

This print was more an exercise than a work, but I'm quite happy with it. I'm very happy with the colors. I'm obsessed with photographing flowers, but I still haven't developed that as a skill for printmaking, thus the more abstract impression seen here.

Let's Have Fun, Guy!

The first print of 2017 is well underway and following close on the heels of this accomplishment is the first problem of 2017! But it was easily resolved and I'm back at it.

First, the print is a redo of a print I first began back in 2014, then tackled a couple more times. This was the last one:

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite what I'd wanted. It had some whimsy, and I liked the cartoony nature of it. But I felt I could have done better -- I was using lousy birch plywood, and I don't think I'd yet learned to properly sharpen my knives. Additionally, as evidenced here, I was still a long way from finding the cure for the ink problems I was having. The entire background should have been deep black, but the ink pulled back into tiny pools on the print after pulling it from the block.

All of those problems are gone now, and here is the print with two colors:

You can see the contrast really well between the light and dark colors of the mushroom. I was very, very happy with this. I hung the prints up to dry. The next morning, I went to do my next color and found this:

I photographed this so that you could still see the image, but in straight light, it looked like a brown square. The ink had dried to almost the exact color of the first color. Anyone who has painted a room or furniture knows this effect. As an ink tech for a printing company, I was extremely surprised, as I have never witnessed this with ink. I don't do a lot of tones, so it's not a huge problem, but it sure was disappointing. Luckily, I was able to print over this with a lighter version, and it looked awesome.