"Red Chair"

"Red Chair"
Sintra engraving on paper, acrylic paint
8.5" x 8.5" (unconstructed)

My new little papercraft print, "Red Chair," is on view right now in Milwaukee as part of PRNT:MK, the 2013 SGCI printmaking conference.  I'm not attending, sadly, because attending as someone not attached to a university in some way is crazy expensive.  So, I've been attending about every other year.  The picture at left was taken by Colin Roe Ledbetter of the portfolio my piece is included in, Assorted Delights.



 

This piece is also in the upcoming show Cloud 9, at the Trunk Space in Phoenix, AZ with a reception on April 5th.

The piece has an inner chamber, and if you peer through the windows in his torso you can see it, too. Though it's difficult to photograph, I've attempted it to give you some idea.

For the portfolio this piece was made for I needed to construct about 20 individual figures, each one taking a little over an hour to make.  By the time I'd finished cutting and gluing the last one I sort of hated them.  It's been a couple weeks now, so I no longer hold such loathing for the needless complexity I engineered into his construction.

 At left, you can see "Red Chair" inconstructed.

And here's Mulcifer the cat, diligently overseeing me as I print.

Bat: The first print

Today, I printed the first print on my new Takach press.  Well, to be honest it's on indefinite loan not really mine, but it's as good in that I get to use it.  It's a table top Takach, but will accommodate up to a 30" x 22" paper, and anything much bigger than that I can print at work.

The move was not quite as epic and demanding as I had expected given that the press is mostly aluminum, so it was doable for only two or three people to move it, though very heavy. My boss helped us move it out of Josephine Press, and then my partner (Jason), my friend Tim Musso and I moved it up into my loft.  Luckily, we have a freight elevator in our building.

 

Our cat, Mulcifer, immediately inspected the new addition to his domain and found it satisfactory.

The first print, a wee little linocut of a bat, is something I could also have printed on my other press, a wee tank of a thing that has served me well in the past, but I really wanted to get started on the Takach and not put it off until I had something really impressive to print.

The bat is printed on Arches 250 cover with rubber based ink, and paper size is 5" by 7", and I watched Poirot on Mystery! the whole time.

Catman print from linoleum scraps

I've been doing my best to get Josephine Press tidied up this summer. The Press has been around, and in the same location, for nearly as long as I've been alive, so you can imagine that there are little bits of all sorts of things hidden away, some of them useful and some of them useless and long since expired. Like ink, for instance. I just found a drawer full of little pots of lovely custom colors some printer mixed up for a client years ago, all of them dried into solid lumps. But I also found a cache of linoleum scraps. They were destined to be thrown out, but I decided to try to use them to make some wee prints with. I can carve a little image in a sitting, and then print it when I have some downtown or after a workshop. This fellow I printed with the ink left over from the monoprint workshop last weekend, and used paper left over from old jobs (offprints and trial proofs, we have boxes of it) and some pretty blue hemp washi left over from a previous edition.

These are intended for postcards that I'll send to my friends who may already be tired of receiving postcards, but let me know if you're interested in doing a trade (print for print or something like that) because I'm up for it.

Techniques represented: linocut, and on the found paper: bokashi roll, screenprint, lithograph, photo etching, monoprint, and xerox solvency transfer.

Postcards for pals, part 1

My goal for April was to send out a single postcard for each day of the month. All postcards I handmade and I sent each one to a different friend who lives far way from me. I hope these all made it to their destinations relatively unscathed.

Linocut on found paper, sent to the artist Tim Musso

Linocut and monoprint on found paper, sent to the artist and gallery owner Stephanie Carrico

Linocut on found paper, sent to the writer Nathan C. Martin

Monoprint, watercolor, and colored pencil, sent to my pal Sarah W.

Woodcut and watercolor on found paper, sent to my pal Shawn M.

Linocut on found paper, sent to my pal David J.

Here's Shawn's, having safely arrived in Louisiana:

The Conversationalists, Part 2

Here's the second print I made for the demo I did at AR4t Gallery as part of the Dennis McNett show. I think of them as two heads having an awkward conversation.

It's linocut on paper in an edition of 200. I added a ton of Japan drier to the ink so that I wouldn't take prints that were completely wet home with me. It actually worked pretty well, and the prints were completely dry to the touch the morning after printing.

These guys are for sale on my etsy site, here.

Conversationalists, part 1

I went all the way from Los Angeles to Laguna Beach to see the Whale of Gratitude show by Dennis McNett. It was pretty amazing, which wasn't particularly surprising, but I was a little surprised and pleased when the gallery owners invited me to do an inhouse demonstration of relief printmaking during the Laguna Artwalk. Dennis McNett is a Brooklyn based artist, and so couldn't attend both receptions.

I carved two new blocks for the demo. They're both a single color linoleum block on a variety of paper stocks in an edition of 100 each and can be left flat or folded into a three dimensional little paper ball.

I had a lot of fun having a couple little kids help me crank the press, and it's wonderful when people applaud when you pull a new print off the block like it's a magic trick.

"Apart"

Last linocut of 2011.

This print is part of the Multiverse exchange at the SGCI 2012 New Orleans conference.

I originally intended to carve this relief print out of sintra, which is what I tend to prefer, but the deadline was closer than it should have been due to my procrastination, so I opted for linoleum, which is faster and easier to carve but loses sharpness sometimes.

I'm new to hair.  To be honest, my fear of drawing hair is a little unfounded and embarrassing at this point in my career, but there it is.  I'm trying to force myself to include more hair in my pieces now, just to get over it.  Straight hair I think I have down pretty well now, but I don't know about curly hair.

This linocut is printed on a blue hemp washi, purchased from Hiromi Paper, and then chine colle-d onto Rives BFK.

LA Art Show 2011, and even more prints

In addition to screenprinting and collaborating with Linda Lyke, I also printed some mono/collagraph/relief prints on my own. I didn't prepare as much as I should have for these demos. I just grabbed a bunch of old plates and used those to generate the prints instead of making something new specifically for the event. I prefer my prints from the event last year to this one, but I did have more time then and much fewer people to talk to. Being chatty and friendly while working is so difficult.

From the LA Art Show facebook page:


This one is from an old collagraph plate with a chine colle. The image is from the collagraphe and it's just inked ala poupe.


Chine colle onto blank paper with kitikata of a collagraph and relief print. The block is from a much older print.