Anything Worth Doing

Work flow

2009-07-29T00:04:00.000-07:00

4 colour screen print on Rives lightweight. Mostly to figure out the work flow and logistics of making prints here. Can't wait to get back into my studio this fall.

Flat files

2009-07-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

Two sets of 44" flat files. Just in time to move them.

Also, here's the start of my next collaborative print with my friend Jack Ozegovic. We're each taking turns cutting and send the lino back and forth until the entire surface is covered, then we'll print an edition. I was excited to proof it because I got to use some of the new equipment that I purchased for my fall printmaking class.

It's a crab.

Getting around to it

2009-06-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to working on that spider linocut that I made a few months ago. I spoke to the grad students to day and then spent the rest of the day cleaning the old motorized Brand in the drawing studio. It will be on this press that I will teach printmaking in the fall. Once clean, I made a proof of the monoprints I will make soon.

All this monoprint proof is missing is the multi-coloured smear to demonstrate the "after." I think it's coming right along.

Proofing and paper

2009-06-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

So I couldn't find any kind of paper with the right qualities here in town, specifically 300gsm 100% cotton buff paper. I was almost resigned to printing it on white until the guy in the art supply store suggested that I stain the paper with tea.

Then it all became so clear...since this is a coffee themed thank you, why no stain the paper with coffee? this is what 95-ish pieces of 5"x7" BFK look like in 72 cups of coffee.

And here is the first proof of the cut printed. Final proof and printing tomorrow, once I fish all of the paper out of the coffee. Also, I think the ink needs to be more brown.

Wouldn't fit

2009-06-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

I couldn't fit all of the copy "Thank you and best wishes," so I guess they'll only be getting thank yous. Either way, I think this is shaping up to be a pretty solid little cut (one of my best yet).

Getting there

2009-06-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

Eight hours in, about another eight to go. The real victories here are the nose and the eyes, but then I suppose that painting a dog isn't too far off painting a human, it still has to bear a resemblance and capture the character of the sitter. Once I start on the mouth, I think the whole thing is really going to take shape.

Progress

2009-06-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten how much I enjoy oil painting.

It's slow going, but if nothing else, it looks like a 13 year-old golden retriever.

Buffalo 66

2009-06-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the pictures just make themselves. Makes me want to start carrying my camera around again.

Portraits On Commission

2009-06-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a sketch of a dog for a commissioned portrait I'm about to begin working on. The studio building flooded this week, but my space escaped most of the water.

No Comment

2009-05-13T10:34:00.001-07:00

Back At It

2009-05-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

So I've been away from my studio for the past month, in fact 5 weeks spent rekindling my love affair with musical theatre. It has been an amazing little time, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to leave the acting to the actors (at least for the next little while).

And as a segue out of theatre and into the studio, I spent last night painting a portrait of the lead actor in his role as Buddy Holly. This particular has a tradition of hanging a placard in the dressing room hallway for all cast members to sign, so this will be the one for The Buddy Holly Story. Gouache and ink on panel.

In hindsight, I should have actually painted it on velvet (as opposed to just making it look like I did.)

Are You Following Me, Camera Guy?

2009-04-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

It's a work in progress, but here is a collaborative drawing that my Art215 class did with 2 other art 215 classes. Each student was given a piece of the picture and had to render it in charcoal 10.5" x 18" . The result is this drawing, 9' wide by 9' tall.

Makes you saw "WOW" everytime! Now if only we could track down the missing pieces...

Adventures in Hectography

2009-04-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying to figure out this whole hectography thing. It's a print made from a gelatin plate, the idea being that if you were going to publish plans on how to break out of prison so that you and your accomplices were on the same page (so-to-speak), you could do so using only materials from the commissary and no electricity. Lo-fi printmaking.

I'm having a hard time and I suspect that I'll get it right just in time to get thrown out of my studio for the summer. And that is all I'm going to say about that.

Shelving

2009-04-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

Shelving.

Truth In Advertising

2009-03-31T23:50:00.000-07:00

I had no idea what printmaking was until I decided to get a degree in it. I'm teaching Intro To Print next fall and I'm worried that no one will take it because they don't know what it is or what is could be. So I decided to make some posters and hang them up around the art dept. to drum up interest. Two colour linocut that I planned and cut in less than 20 minutes total. A new record, I'm lucky I didn't cut myself.

Then while I was at it, I decided to print some thank you cards...

An Authentic Fake

2009-03-31T00:33:00.001-07:00

How do you arrange things in a random pattern?

My birdhouse so far. Most of this will be covered up by bigger, more elaborate murals. This is really just the underpainting.

Presented Without Comment

2009-03-24T11:54:00.001-07:00

I give up

2009-03-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

I wash my hands of this print. For now anyway. Even though I've been slowly working on it for months, I still don't have time to get it together for SGC. The other problem is that my press bed isn't quite big enough to allow for any sort of proper registration. So here it is in two colours as it sits on the left in my studio.

Not exactly...

2009-03-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm sure this isn't what Habitat for Humanity meant...

I still have to paint the stucco to look like stucco and then...the tagging.

Urban Blight In Bird Populations

2009-03-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

I was invited to "decorate" a birdhouse for a charity auction to benefit Habitat for Humanity. I have an idea for what I'm going to do, but I think if they're going to wish that I hadn't done one at all once they see it finished. Here it is in black primer:

And here are my first tests of the urban blight stucco/brick look that I'm going for.

Hint: the rest of my idea involves tagging and wheatpasting.

Terror in Paisley

2009-03-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

Becky decided to make some postcards while I was at work today, so I left her in the studio to make a linocut. Here she is printing them...

Here they are drying:

The terror alert has been raised to paisley.

A week of getting nothing done

2009-03-08T15:54:00.000-07:00

How is it possible that things that won't start for another 6 months are getting in the way of me getting anything done right now?

Either way, here's a quick in wash drawing of an empty wine bottle.

And further cutting.

Slowly but surely

2009-03-01T11:43:00.000-08:00

Will this print ever be done? I have to compromise and go with a key block approach, rather than pure blocks of colour as I wanted to do, but that would have involved planning. Maybe next time. What you see here is a proof of two colours from the same block, a reductive proof I suppose. I think I might cut the final down to just two colours in the interest of getting it done in time for the exchange.

Towards a new Vorticism

2009-02-24T11:16:00.000-08:00

I'm confused and excited by what this print might look like when I'm done. Maybe making a 3 block linocut with no plan is a bit ambitious, I don't know. But I do like this aesthetic.

More linocut

2009-02-21T16:23:00.000-08:00

So the spider linocut is done, here is the first proof. I want to print it on a full sheet but my press is too small, I'll have to go to the University. There's a motorized Brand in the drawing studio, but there's not blankets and the whole outfit looks pretty dicey.

I'm starting to think about my print for the SGC print exchange, I'm thinking about continuing this dystopia theme but maybe with a Vorticist sort of aesthetic in three or four colours. I printed up a few quick postcards to get my hands used to the chisels again:

this of course bears no resemblance to Vorticism, but I did cut it on two pieces that could be inked independently so that it wouldn't be a boring old one colour print.

Further proof

2009-02-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

Progress is progress, I suppose.

How to hang a coffee maker

2009-02-16T18:27:00.000-08:00

I found this diagram in my studio stuff, I'm not sure why I have it, but it's a technical drawing on how to hang the coffee maker at my parent's house. They've had this coffee maker as long as I've been around. It's so unnecessarily and beautifully complicated. How hard could it possibly be to hang an under-the-cupboard coffee maker? All those measurements...why?

A Mess

2009-02-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

Like a damn bomb went off. This is why I haven't posted in a few days. My studio is a mess, so I cleaned it up today and started on a new print.

It's going to be a linocut that yields some monoprints.

Daisy

2009-02-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

This is Daisy the donkey. Painted from a quick cellphone camera shot. I don't care if watercolour is for old women and school children, I like it and think I should do more of it.

Oldie But Goodie

2009-02-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

This is some camera art that I painted a few years ago, acrylic on tracing paper. It's pretty big (like 36" x 25") and I've used it for various projects, but I think I need to revisit it for something. It's so fake, yet makes no apologies.

Shadow Puppet

2009-02-09T19:33:00.000-08:00

A drawing form a series that I've been stewing on for a while. About the impossibility of making things with your hands, especially since those things end up being useless/impractical in addition to being improbable.

Variations on theme

2009-02-07T17:16:00.000-08:00

Medals don't work as well as trophies.

Collage

2009-02-06T15:59:00.000-08:00

I had this pack of acid-free Canson paper with a self-adhesive backing, 10 sheets in 5 basic colours. So I decided to make some collages of trophies. I think they could also make nice prints, though they're sort of like sketches but then again they're archival. I suppose it's not a bad method of working, to make sure that everything is acid free.

What is the value of a trophy, honestly? $5.00 wholesale? How could a piece of gold coloured plastic that possibly serve to commemorate anything? And who decides who gets recognised for and what level of accomplishment? Is any trophy really worth anything? Is any achievement?

Dystopia

2009-02-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about dystopia since this afternoon. So here's some woodcuts that I did a while back that never saw the light of day to speak to that...

A weekend spent

2009-02-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

Bucky Fuller never played tennis, or at least it doesn't mention anything it on his Wikipedia page. I spent last Saturday in the John Talleur Print Studio in Lawrence, KS making prints. this is what I ended up with.

Although I did an edition like this (and I like the the print for its graphic and narrative nature), I think I prefer this proof:

I like it because at first glance it looks like a map of an island, and only the subtle white tells you that it's a crushed tennis ball. I think I should have made the edition of these.

Both printed silk screen on BFK 250lb white, top in four colours, the bottom in three. Blue, yellow, white and black.

Linocut Proof

2009-02-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

Here's a proof of a linocut. I think in two colours, a pale yellow flat and a sort of ochre for the figure. Something about bowling trophies, especially really old ones.

You were sort of good at something inconsequential a long time ago. Congratulations.

New! Blog!

2009-02-03T14:51:00.000-08:00

I sometimes get things done between classes and sleeping. I am starting this blog to showcase my new work and I implore everyone who comes across it to comment on or critique anything that you see.