Print Exchange

Every so often, I remember how fun it is to participate in a print exchange. This year, I choose to participate in the Emerald Print Exchange. The wonderful thing about print exchanges is that the thrill and benefits last long after the exchange ends because you are the recipient of a packet of wonderful prints from who knows where/who.

With this project, I decided to continue my minimalism trend of artmaking as a subject for the exchange. I choose one of the drawings I have been making of a person and their shadow/guardian. At some point, I will show these drawings on this blog but for now I am just going to focus on the drawing I choose which is probably the most minimal of all the drawings. To give a sense of scale, the drawing is in a pocket size notebook so the paper is about 3″ x 4″. It is just done with a black gel pen.

A drawing that a print will be based on.

Now the interesting thing about this drawing is that is could actually go either way. This is the actual way I drew it but as a nod to the notion of the image’s flexibility, I decided to call the piece Either Or and sign the resulting print in a way where the viewer can decide.

Wanting to experience the full range of choices in printmaking, right from the start I made both a woodblock cut and a dry point/aquatint engraving. Below are the two different plates.

Yesterday the fun really kicked in when I did proofing of both plates. I soon realized that the woodblock would be the better choice for the exchange because it will be less problematic to get consistency with each print pulled. I will explain more of this later in this article. Below are both the results in woodblock (left) and the dry point (right). You can right click on either image to open a larger version.

So the reason the woodblock will be easier to print consistently is because the application of ink is more straightforward – the ink is just rolled on the raised surface and the carved image (barring some sort of odd accident) will retain its original form. For the dry point, the ink is applied then wiped away leaving the ink in the recessed areas. The problem with getting consistency with the dry point is the plate on which the image is made. Traditionally, zinc or copper is used and this is a plastic plate.

With dry point, there is no acid involved. Therefore it is an engraving technique, not an etching technique. The beauty of the dry point is the soft velvety line left from what is called a ‘burr’. In engraving, the tools are made to cut away the burr leaving very fine even lines. With dry point, the tools do not cut away that cleanly so a small bit of metal (the burr) remains on the plate and catches ink. Copper or zinc plates keep their burr for a fairly long time. With the plastic plate, the weight from the press smashes the burr rather quickly so you have to keep going back into the plate and scribing again. This will eventually lead to a very different looking image over the course of times the plate is printed.

Now that I made the decision to use the woodblock, I have to decide if I want to carve another block for a background. I will publish those experiments as I do them. Thanks for printing with me today!

The Sea Bass Update Saga

Many years ago, we went to dinner at a restaurant in Chinatown with our friends Mike and Cindy. On the menu, sea bass was listed as ‘market price’. Since Mike was interested in the sea bass, he asked the waiter what it cost. The waiter responded with ‘market price’, which lead Mike to ask what the market price was. The communication/language barrier caused a Whose on First type of scenario.

I don’t remember if Mike ended up getting the sea bass or not, nor do I remember if we ever determined exactly what the market price was that evening. But one thing I do know that came out of that evening which is this: on a fairly regular basis over the next 37 years (and still counting) I have been made aware of what the market price of sea bass was at random times and locations. How did this come about you may wonder? Mike had a job where he traveled quite a bit and he also was a foodie long before such a term existed. So at any given time, he would find himself at a market somewhere or other and report the price of the sea bass to me. Originally I learned this information several days or weeks after the fact but eventually, come the age of cell phones, the market price of sea bass was just a phone call or voice mail away. Now in the age of texting, I will often receive a photo of the fish with the current price. If I had known at the time all this started that I would be getting sea bass updates for the next several decades, I may have kept a log of the information. But I didn’t. So in honor of this bazaar tradition that came about, for the sake of making some permanent record, I am recording the latest sea bass price update in the photo below.

Paper Quilt Collages & Drawings Continues

As a quick recap, this little book (4″ x 6″) contains both paper collages and drawings. The collages were originally inspired by a workshop at the National Gallery of Art about the Gees Bend Quilt movement, though I have strayed a bit from that on some collages. In addition, I thought it would be fun to draw the collages after I made them. So the collages are on the right and the drawings are on the left. There are several posts on this project and you can search for more in the box below by putting in “paper quilts”. It seems as though in my haste to get these photographed, I cut off a bit of the right side of some of the collages but I think you will still get the overall idea. By right clicking on any of the images, it will open in another tab and make for better viewing. I will continue to post these as I get a group of images until the book is filled.

Ghost Town

I was taking an online class through the Smithsonian with Marcie Wolfe Hubbard. Our last class involved incorporating a piece of fabric in our work. This was very easy thanks to my friend Claudia who recently gifted me with a very fun piece of fabric that reminded her our our friend Harriet the Elegant Ghost * Here is the result of my efforts using the fabric Claudia sent to me.

*I only linked to one Harriet cartoon. If you enjoy them, you can go to the bottom of my blog and search Harriet and plenty will show up.

Watercolor and Pencil

Sometimes it’s fun to go back to basics. Recently I was presented with a choice of images to draw in a workshop. Though I worked with a few of the images, the one that captivated me most was a portrait of the lovely Clara Bow. I have always loved to make full tonal drawings in charcoal but I wanted to challenge myself so I decided to try two different things: one in pencil and one in watercolor. For the pencil one, the challenge was to not overdue it; basically, I was going for economy of line/information. For the watercolor, the challenge was simply using the watercolor. Also, I realized that in the pencil one, her gaze was forward whereas in the image I was using it was looking up so I corrected that in the watercolor. The pencil drawing (left) is larger than the watercolor (right).

Seasonal Haiku

I enjoy reading Haiku because the length matches my attention span. In going through some old notebooks, I came across two Haiku that I wrote during this time of year so I am sharing them below.

Oct. 1997

Ghosts, goblins stirring

through the moaning thick of night,

come daylight – vanished!

November, 1997

The crisp air turns cold

and settles into winter

when harvest is done.

Redux: Neighborhoods Artist Book

If this looks a bit familiar it is because you may have received a similar post recently that did not load quite right so I took it down to fix and hopefully this one works. Below is a very short video of an Artist Book I made call Neighborhoods. It was made from a 12″ x 12″ piece of paper and the imagery came mostly from a drypoint (engraving) I made specifically for this purpose. I combined the cut up drypoint prints with other media and here is the final book. Click on the still image below to start the video. If you do not see an image, give it a second to load up. Much thanks!