From Start to Finish

For some people it is a mystery what I do, and how a piece of art is created. I finally remembered to keep a camera on me, so here is a little story of how my latest print came to be.

I am currently working on illustrating a book, where the main character is a little Winter Wren. I have been doing some research on the bird and found an interesting tidbit of information that I wanted to share with people. I also wanted to practice drawing wrens before starting with illustrating. So that's where the idea came from.

Making the Image and the Blocks. I looked through my own photos and through some online for reference for vegetation and birds. Then I had to figure out size- I wanted to make something small, so 4"x5" it was... I came with a sketch of the basic composition in my head, and then drew it out on a piece of paper as you can see on the left.

To make the print more interesting, I wanted to make it two colors. To figure out where colors should go, I transferred the original drawing on vellum, and then was able to trace the second color on top of it. When you layer them together you can get an idea of what the final print would look like.

I scanned the ink drawings on the computer, and printed them out on a lazer printer. The images were transferred to linoblocks as I described in my last blogpost. Where after I proceeded to carve them with linocarving tools.

Paper, Ink and Text. Next I figured out what size paper would be best to print on and proceeded to tear big sheets to the right size. For smaller prints, in general it looks nice to have at least two inches of white paper on each side of the printed area. I had to also figure out what colors I wanted to print with and mix ink accordingly. For the text, each letter had to be picked out of a drawer and set in the form you want them to print with. (Sorry I forgot to take a picture of that...)

Printing. I was very excited to print at the letterpress shop at SVC Seattle with an old school Chandler & Price press. It's amazing to think that this press was built about 100 years ago! Wish they built things like that today... For this wren print, I had to print on each sheet of paper three times- first the light color linoblock, then the dark color linoblock, and after that the text with the dark color also. The press also had to be cleaned for each color of ink to print.

Finishing the Edition. Lastly, I could bring my fresh prints home, go through them to toss out all the bad/ misregistered ones, clean out dirty marks and then sign and edition the rest of the prints that made it to the edition.

Now after that being read, aren't you excited about trying printmaking too! You might ask, why would you do that to your self, would it not just be easier to paint a picture. Well, yes and no. Sure, I can paint it, but I absolutely love the physical processes of printmaking. I love carving plates, being worn out after a day of printing, even the never ending challenges when things don't want to work out (trust me there are a LOT of glitches). And as icing on the cake, instead of just one painting at the end of the day, I have a set of prints, that I can sell more affordably, so that many more people can enjoy my art (for sale here).

I found a quote, that describes everything quite well:

"I must confess, I love my press.

For when I print, I know no stint

of joy."

I think I need to have that on a t-shirt...

Next post, I'll write about the last half of the letterpress class at SVC (ref. last posting) and the print that I made for it.

Till then, cheers!

Letterpress Revelations

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I am taking a letterpress class with Jenny Wilkson at SVC Seattle right now. Class has been so much fun and I have learned at least a couple of new things about letterpress. In the first picture on the top our instructor, Jenny Wilkson, is showing us how to set type and how to transfer it from gallery to press without dropping type on the floor. It's all in the flick of the wrist. During the first class we all set our names in type and printed them all together on the press. We all got to take turns to crank out a sheet.

For our second class we were joined by Carl Montford, who is accomplished in wood engraving. He brought some of the most amazing broadsides to show and explained the process of carving to us. At the end of the class, we all got to work on our own linocuts.

I learned a new way of transferring an image onto your linoblock. Here's how you do it: First make a lazer copy of the image you are transferring. (either from computer lazer printer or lazer copier) Make sure it is very dark, and this will make the whole process easier. Cut the image smaller and tape one edge of it to your block. Below is Carl explaining the process, you can see the lazer printed image with one side taped to the block.

Put the block down and pour a little mineral spirit over it (please have well ventilated area, I would also advise gloves). Wipe off the excess mineral spirit with a rag and distribute it evenly onto the back of the paper.

After that we took a heating tool, and pressed firmly on the back of the paper where the image is. Some smoke will arise but it's (apparently) normal. Don't press too long or the wand will lose too much heat. You'll notice the image gets fainter if the wand gets too cold if you have a large image to work with. You could also try an iron on the highest setting or one of the small hobby irons.

The transferred image. I liked this, because the image will not rub off, when you handle the plate and it is more accurate than using carbon paper or pencil rubbing to transfer your image.

Here we are hard at work carving our linocuts...

This is my two block print that I started working on. I can't wait to print it at some point in the future. Last class we learned how to mix ink. A tip for some: make sure you use a different ink knife for each can of ink you open, and yet another one for mixing the ink. That way if you have to get more ink out of the cans, you wont contaminate the clean ink with any other colors. For next week, we have to have mockups ready of our prints. I am running behind on this, so I need to go in really early today and try to finish my design before class starts. I'll take some more pictures tonight! I can't wait to see all the cool prints that are going to come out of this class. :)

Honored in Kent

I was part of the City of Kent juried summer art exhibit this year. The show opened last week with a busy reception. I was so happy to see friends from as far as Bellevue and Lacy and make new ones from all around the area. I'll put some pictures from the exhibit. The level of artwork was high, and I was happy to be a part of it all. You can still go and visit until Aug 27th, 2010, at the Centennial Center gallery (400 W. Gowe St, Kent, WA). Gallery hours are 8am-5pm during weekdays.

This exhibition has been so special to me. My work has been honored in so many ways. My image of a bullfinch made it to the front of the exhibition card and I received two awards in the show- a purchase award to be included in the City of Kent portable works collection and the Gallery Award to have a 2 month exhibition next year. And to top it off, most of the work sold by the end of the night. I feel so very blessed (James 1:17). I am so excited to have a show opportunity in Kent. The space is great, with lots of traffic, so it will be possible to reach a wide audience.

I just wanted to mention at least one other artist who is in the juried show with me. Maria Coryell-Martin has her work right next to mine on the wall. You can see her work on the second picture from the top. Her work is exciting through how it is created- bringing together art, outdoors and science- to raise environmental awareness. Maria makes color sketches in the field in freezing environments and then develops them into large watercolor paintings in her studio. Here is a short excerpt from her website: "As an Expeditionary Artist, I travel to remote regions and paint environments vulnerable to climate change, following the tradition of traveling artists such as Emily Carr in British Columbia, Thomas Moran in the American West, and Edward Wilson in Antarctica. Since 2005, I have focused on polar and glaciated environments, including Greenland, Antarctica, British Columbia, and the North Cascades mountains in Washington State." Currently she is getting ready to head to Greenland for an expedition. How exciting is that!

Two etching techniques and Pronto plate results

Good day to you! I am feeling great today after my surgery. I have not even needed to take a pain killer yet! Praises to God for that. I know a lot of people have been praying for me, and I think it has really helped.

Today is the first day of my letterpress class, and as I had written before, I wanted to blog about my previous one before I jump into the next one. I also taught an acrylic plate litho class over the weekend, and we had great results with different media.

So at the nontoxic printmaking class we also used two different soft grounds. The first one was made by using Graphic Chemical water based relief ink- Crimson Red #1661 and Lascaux Transparentlack #2060. The transparentlack was added to make the ink dry quicker on the plate- don't use too much of it or it will dry too quickly. We mixed in ratio of 1 part transparentlack and 3 parts red ink. There are some interesting comments on the technique in the Graphic Chemical Bulletin board.

Below- we were using a thin aluminum plate from an offset litho place as a rolling out surface. A fun idea.

below- here is the teacher rolling out the red base on the plate. There is a limited time to work on this, so I would not go out to lunch in the middle of all this. After the ink has been rolled out, let it dry slightly, just a couple of minutes, and then roll it though the press with what ever you were going to use on your soft ground. Tip- to keep backing paper around your feather or other material, sticking down to the softground, slightly oil a piece of mylar and set it over the plate and softground materials before running through the press. That way no extra soft ground gets picked up. For the same problem you can also just cover the areas up with the johnson hardground by hand after you ran it through the press.

I did some pieces of moss and leaves for my soft ground try out. The dark areas on my plates are aquatint that was sprayed to keep some of the more open areas from completely open biting.

You can also use the red ground as a regular etching resist hard ground. After rolling it out, dry it on a hot plate for about 20 min. It will stay flexible enough for a little while (day or so) so you could just draw through it with you etching needle. I like this option, because this ground stays on pretty well, and you don't have to be as careful with it as you have to with the johnson hardgrounds. The result looks much like a traditional line etching with asphaltum hard ground.

The second soft ground we did was mixing 3 parts Graphic Chemical water based ink Black #1659 and 1 part Lascaux Transparentlack #2060. This works similar to the red ink soft ground, but the ink granules are more coarse. You can either roll the ground on and then manipulate it with distilled water or then mix it with dist. water in little cups for several "strengths" to paint with directly on the plate. The different thicknesses of ground will let the ferric chloride bite though at different lengths of time. We used an Edinburg etch for all the etching in the class. Below is an example of a plate that we were working with the black ground - rolling it on and painting it with water ground mixture.

I like the possibility of some really nice tousche type washes with these grounds. You can use the red ground in the same way as the black. After rolling the red ground on you can use distilled water, which will separate the ink particles. The red will give you a finer wash and the black a coarser wash. You can also use sticks, q-tips and different type of brushes to manipulate the ground. If you are using the red ink just on its own without the transparentlack, you can get a stepped aquatint where the lighter applied areas will etch through first and thicker applied areas etching last. Below some pictures of us mixing the grounds and painting on them.

Here is a nice example of the soft ground wash etched on a plate. The plate, the print and a closeup:

I also found another link for floorwax etching ground using Future-floor polish. It can be found here.

Whew, are you still ready for some more information? Here are some images from the plastic plate lithography I taught over the past weekend. I had previously used Z-Acryl plates, and this time I had ordered some Pronto plates. I wanted to see what the differences were. I was also interested in trying this out, since from my research I had figured that crayon drawings might work better on these plates.

We were able to try out several techniques. One of the students brought in her drawing and she just ran over to Office Max to get that xeroxed on to a plate. Her prints turned out great, exactly like her original drawing was. Here are a couple of pictures of that.

Above- proofing on the press.

below- the plate itself and below that the print from it.

Closeups of both.

I was really excited to try what happened when we used crayons on this material. I read that Korn's litho crayon #4 works best, so I had some of those ready on hand. One of the students made a drawing with it. To our horror as soon as we wiped the plate wet, the crayon washed right off. But to our suprise, the crayon had left an oily residue, that picked up ink as we rolled it up. We only had time to proof it twice, and the results were very interestng. I think if we would have rolled it up a little more, it would have rolled up quite nicely. So I was very encouraged by the results! Drawing with crayons on the Z-Acryl plates in the past did not seem to work at all. The ink would pick up when rolling, and leave behind nothing. Another 2 things I liked better with the pronto plates, was the there is no wrong or right side and that it is more translucent. Having it more translucent makes it easier to work with for beginning students I think, if they need to trace their drawings.

Here is a proof of a horse drawn quickly with a ball point pen. This is a pretty foolproof media to use on the plates.

That was quite a long post, but I'm glad I got to report on all the exciting things I've discovered in the last couple of days and months. Hope you enjoyed it, letterpress stuff to follow next.

God given time to Blog

I ended up getting in on a cancelled time this morning and having my two lower wisdom teeth removed. Since I am couch-stuck for a couple of days, I have time to sit and blog now! I thought I would be feeling quite a lot worse and had prepared to just watch movies, but I'm feeling way better than what I thought so here I am.

I feel like a hamster right now with some very chubby cheeks... Yeah, I'm not puffing them up or anything in that picture.

I wanted to share exciting printing results from a recent polymerplate and linocut class I taught, and share some of the info from the nontoxic intaglio class. Might have to break it up into two posts...

So I have been working with a couple of students here and there. It is always exciting when we come up with new ideas and when prints turn out beautifully. The smiles of students feeling accomplished always keep me motivated to teach class. While doing some printing of linocuts with a friend on Friday, we came up with a "new" way of registering. it was new to me, even though it might not be new to you.

She had a two plate unmounted linoleum block that we wanted to print on my little etching press. So instead of having an L-shaped registration plate- or printing like an etching- we took a piece of mylar, drew the plate mark and paper edges on it. We taped some mat board on the edges for a paper guide. I guess the end result is a hybrid between Asian woodcut registration and etching registration. This seemed to work well for her, so I would be willing to try this again in the future when printing though an etching press.

above- linocut set on the registration sheet.

below- setting the paper over the top.

above- after running through the press, we left one edge caught under the roller, and brought the next plate (ready inked up) over to the press.

below- changing the plates out.

above- pulling the first proof is always very exciting!

below- finished print by Gail Kelly.

Going back in time to the class I took in Finland. We were taught 4 different types of nontoxic

grounds to use with ferric chloride. The first one we did was Johnson- floorwax hardground. Reading online, I don't know if they have that available in the US. Does anyone know about that? The hardground formula had 1 part floorwax and 1 part Golden Stop out. We would spread it on a copper plate that had been cleaned from all grease, and let it drip a while, and then we would heat it over a hotplate to set the ground completely. The heat helps the ground bond to the plate better.

Above- nook with tub of salt-vinegar solution and sink.

We were using two kinds of Johnson floor polishes that have different properties. The "shinewax" (direct translation from Finnish) flakes off slightly when you draw with a needle, so fine linework/hatching is out of the question but it will take longer etching times. The "endurance wax" we used straight out of the bottle, with out the stop out. It is more flexible and does not chip out when drawing through, but it will not take as long etching times. Because you are using it straight out of a bottle it was clear and hard to see what you were drawing, but if you mix a little bit of india ink in it, you should be ok. You can also coat it twice to make the etching time longer. I liked the second one better, because it was easier to draw though and I normally don't do long etching times anyways.

Above- nook to clean grounds off plates, we reuse the solution over and over again. At the end of they day, the solution was stored in the gallon jugs.

Below- 2 etching tanks, large vertical and small horizontal. We were using edinburgh etch so you could etch horizontal as well.

Note: make sure you are cleaning the plate thoroughly before coating it with the ground. We dipped our plates in a solution of:

1 part vinegar

1 part salt

3 parts water

After dipping through solution, rinse plate quickly and blot dry.

You can remove the grounds with a solution of 1.5dl washing soda crystals diluted in 1 liter of water.

We also used the floorwax for aquatint. 1 part johnson wax and 1 part Golden Stop out. Make sure as in the technique above your plate is completely clean before you coat it. To block out areas in between etchings, we were using the wax+stop out and the Golden Stop out. Make sure its dried out before you put it back in the bath.

I found at least two other websites that were talking about these materials: nontoxic printmaking by Friedhard Kiekeben and a slide presentation who I could not find an author for- they also cover the soft ground methods I'll talk about tomorrow.

I have a couple more techniques and polymer litho plate results to blog about, so up and away until tomorrow!