Black field with white

I prepped some plates for a demo on indirect drawing,or the "Paul Klee technique" as my boss calls it, but I over inked them, so they never dried to the right consistency. I put them outside for a couple of hours, hoping that the sun would speed up the drying a little but instead the wind deposited a large amount of debris on the surface of the ink. Rather than waste them, I quickly cut out a silhouette, placed it at the bottom of the plate, and ran a print from it.

I like it so much, that I salvaged one of the sheets that someone else threw away from the garbage, soaked it, and ran the ghost on it. The sheet had been crumpled and had a layer of wheatpaste one it already from the previous failed print, imparting an interesting texture to the final image.

The little boy, probably only six

I found this pencil at work while looking for something to draw with.

Monotype workshop, session 2.5: Viscosity

The second session of the workshop I taught viscosity inking. Viscosity, mostly because I think it sort of has to be covered even if it ends up going over most people's heads. Carla, one of the students, pointed out that I use many food metaphors when I discuss technique--for viscosity, and the way the thin ink resists the stiff ink, I used the example of cocoa powder poured over water failing to mix, but mixes the other way around.

The face I draw when people watch me draw is pretty obvious and repetitive. My repertoire of things I can draw while talking and being observed is now this face, a skull, and maybe hands doing something. I need to expand.

The blue shirt is the viscosity roll, and I finished theprint by added a couple of blue arrows from a potato stamp:

This fellow is a two plate print, with the first print utilizing viscosity inking for the light blue part of the pajamas:

And here's another version of the same image. I reworked it from the ghost of the previous print, but I changed the color so much it's not really evident.