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Etsy Review: Sunflower Farm

I have  pretty well covered the making of "Sunflower Farm," so if you'd like, please scroll back to July and August for details. This sunny 11-color woodcut has an image area of 9x7, and is shipped flat, unmatted via priority US mail. It is designed to fit a standard mat with an opening of at least 7.5x9.5. Framed prints are available, and will be up on the site soon.

Behind The Print: Sunflower Farm

Again, just a quick overview of the reduction woodcut process: a single block of wood is cut, then printed, cut again, then printed, and so on in successive steps which slowly reveal the final image. For example, in the photo at left, you will see that there is a bright yellow and a dark yellow. The bright yellow was printed, then the wood was cut away where I wanted that bright yellow to be. Then when the dark yellow was printed, the bright yellow remained.

Of course, you will note that this print looks nothing like the final print you all now know as "Sunflower Far." Sometimes an artist gets so far before realizing they've made a mistake and need to start over. This is an especially frustrating moment for reduction printmakers, as it means going back to step one. The main thing with this print was the color. I didn't like the sky color, and wasn't happy with the contrast in the yellows. It took eight months before I went back and tried it again, with pretty good results, I think.

The place that the print is modeled after is real, save for some artistic licence. It exists somewhere in Western New York, on a little back road. It had a little sign written by the farmer's kids asking to please don't pick -- the sunflowers, so everyone could enjoy them. Nearby was a large block-lettered sign warning trespassers in no uncertain terms. Talk about contrast.

There is a barn, on a hill, but the vista isn't quite as dramatic. I wish I knew where it was, but we were so excited to see it, we paid no attention to where we were. That's the fate of us roadtrippers.

Extreme Closeup: Sunflower Farm

Better photo to come, but this was a cell phone closeup of "Sunflower Farm" immediately after finishing color #10.

 Sorry about the orientation: grampaw isn't so good with his technology. As I said, better pictures are forthcoming.

As you may know, I traditionally enter a print in the Fine Arts competition at the Erie County Fair. As I prepared to start this print, I found myself in the muck of procrastination. "You need to get going on a print," my wife chided. "You need to give yourself time to do it over."

The joke is, of course, that I have a tendency to do a print a few times before it's right. And while I nailed this baby right out of the gate, allow me to take you back almost exactly one year, to the summer of 2013, when I was working on a little something I called "Sunflower Farm..."

This attempt was donated to the Chaffee Landfill, if anyone wants to go digging for it.

A New Leaf

Not quite ready for the big reveal, "Sunflower Farm" one color away from completion. It clocks in at 11 colors, and I used two blocks. When the ink is dry and the dust settles, I will give a rundown of the process. However, they're looking so good drying on the line that I had to show them off. 

The post is called a new leaf, because 2014 has been an incredible period of growth for me. I began the year by enrolling in school and taking a drawing class which simply changed by whole approach to everything. When I finally forced myself back to the studio with the "DeSoto" print I found that I had improved markedly from the stop & go torture sessions that marked last summer's studio time.

For the first time in years, I am working on multiple projects. My other, heh heh, "pet project," is "Solstice," a portrait of my good friend, whom we call Ticey. This is state two of a 6-color print.

How Green Was My Valley?

Well, that made the flowers pop, didn't it. I love the bright colors on this one. The weekend was actually about as productive as last weekend, with a lot of printing going on in the studio.

Here Comes The Sun...And It's All Right!

It seems that in woodcut printmaking, there are a few subjects every printmaker takes a shot at. Cows are one, and/or animals with stripes. Another is the sunset at the beach. But the one that is probably tried at least once by a goo 90% or more of block printers is the humble sunflower.

And now, at last, my turn. This print is inspired by an acceidental stumbling upon a sunflower farm somewhere in Western New York (I'm not being purposely vague; we really can't remember where the hell it is). I took a few pictures there, and one with a red barn in the background was so nice, I wanted to enter it in the Erie County Fair's photography competition. Due to time constraints and technical difficulties, that didn't happen. So, I decided to use it as a model for this print.

While I was drawing out the cartoon from which I'm now working, I realized how dull it can be trying to be "photorealistic," and decided to go with a more whimsical, expressionist approach. This may be the departure that sends me on the way to a new style of woodcut. Glad you could be here to see it!

Torrential Output

It's been a very busy weekend in the studio. Not sure what spurred it, but it resulted in getting way ahead on two new prints. The first, tentatively titled "Sunflower Farm," had an interesting unintended consequence. Having learned from my issues on preveious prints, I decided to put down a blue sky without inking the whole block. Then, when I printed the nice bright yellow, I got hills! Green hills! And they're right where I was planning to put green hills. Unfortunately, this anomaly will get printed over anyway, as it isn't the green I want, but it was a nice surprise I will have to revisit down the road.

 

And here's a little shot of the "Sunflower" block to give an idea of the layout. More on how this picture came to be will follow in the coming days and weeks.

 

And here is the first and second states of the "Desoto Motel" print. Since you can't really tell, the first color was a white very lightly tinted blue. This will be the outdoor lights on the exposed ceiling just outside the foyer. I'm really excited about this print, as it is an evening scene calling for both very bright and very dark colors, a print of great contrasts.

 

 





Memorial Day (Eleven Color Woodcut, 2013)

What an adventure this was! I'm still not sure about the black. And, actually, I'm just now wondering if I'm really done. I'm teasing myself with the idea of adding brown to the branches. But I'm putting it on the back burner for now. I am turning my attention to two prints now. The first is a "googie" style (look it up) motel (abandoned) we found in Olean called the DeSoto. The second is from a nearby sunflower farm, so please stay tuned to watch these come together. And let's see if I've really learned anything!

Finished...?