Danny

Xkot (pronounced "Scot")

My pal Xkot Toxsik in monoserigraphy! I haven't decided yet if I should title this "Xkot" or "Scot" but I think he'd be really annoyed if I used the "x"-free version.

JRC

Another monoserigraph, this one of my friend JRC.

Steph I & II

A portrait of my friend Stephanie Carrico in monoserigraphy.

I found out that I'd actually already done this portrait while moving out of my studio the week that I write this post(*sob!*):

And here it is while being worked on the screen:

David

This is David Bessent, an artist living on Phoenix, AZ:

I made this portrait in a last minute flurry of activity as I tried to squeeze the last bit of useage out of the printshop as I could. Here's the David print on the screen, and two others in the background:

Jenny

Here's a portrait of my friend, Jenny Cotterill. I found a cache of prints I never photographed from early this year while moving out of my studio, and this is one of them. I've been really enjoying playing with powdered graphite on the monoserigraphs. It holds the water differently than watercolor and can behave unpredictably.

Claire

This is another print in my ongoing portrait project series. I need to come up with a better name for the series than that, too.

As I've improved with screenprinting, I've increased the size of the image. One of the issues with doing a larger stencil is the ability to have even adequate pressure over the entirety of the image, which is no small feat. There's a reason why doing a large even layer of a single color is the hardest thing to do in screenprinting. Doing small runs, printing only one image in an evening (and printing in the evening when it's cooler and less likely to dry rapidly), and overcompensating with the ink are remedies for the difficulty of pulling a large even layer of ink.



This is from a photograph of my little sister Claire Taylor, who is also a printmaker and artist, taken at my second oldest brother Blue's wedding. Claire says is looks both like her and our brother Orson. It's a big family we have.



Here's one of the ghosts:

Steve

This print is from another demo of monoserigraphy that I did for Kimiko Miyoshi's monoprint class. I tried to improve it this time, because I know some of the students in the class have seen me do this before: I revised the handout, made it more concise, added a part about registration at point of exposure, and added a few bits that I've figured out over the last few months.





I got mad sweaty while I was doing this, too. It's probably because of all the coffee I had at Minona while preparing the screens throughout the day, in and out of my studio.

Two faced

Monoserigraphy with powdered graphite and blind embossing. I made this after printing a series with the face, once, and then found a scrap of paper in the print shop and made this with it.

To leave and never return

Monoserigraphy and blind embossing, variable edition.

Monoserigraph of Filiz

Continuing my portrait project is a monoserigraph of Filiz.



At the open studios event a month back a few people asked to learn this method, so I organized a demo. I charged a very small fee so I could cover the cost of materials and afford to buy a beer afterwards. It ended up going pretty well, and was the third time I've demo-ed this technique and the first time I did not stutter from nerves. Ideally, I'd like to try to workshop it as it doesn't require much in the way of facilities and doesn't use anything toxic or dangerous, making it ideal to teach nonprintmakers. Above is the print I made to demo the technique, and below is one of the two made by the attendees (the other is going to China!)



I've recently run into the strange problem of my monoserigraphs being too precise, and people assuming they are manipulated photographs. Or maybe people just don't believe that anyone can draw anymore.

"I Never Left"

My friend organized a print exchange for Ballet West's 100th anniversary. The theme, coinciding with a ballet being performed at the same time, is "Prodigal Son," and participating was only open to Utah artists, or those from Utah.

For mine, I did a monoserigraph with blind embossing and hand applied ink. Here they are with the mono and just after the blind embossing:







Here they are all finished, after applying the ink:





The show reception is March 20th at the Salt Lake Main Library, 6-9 pm, coinciding with gallery stroll. If you go, take a picture for me of the gallery, eh?

Nobody else does it. Not ever.

Monoscreenprinting is a medium I see few to no people working in, but I always adore using it whenever I get to it. The specifics of is can be a bit tricky, so I'm not going to get into a technical description of it here, especially as I'm working up a proposal for IMPACT to do a demonstration of it there next year.

I mixed my own black in watercolor, using complementary colors mixed together instead o just using the blakc out of the tube. This way, the black reticulated into slightly varying shades and color separations as the paint settled and dried.

Here are my screens, painted and drying:


This one is just monoscreen, nothing else:



And then with these two I added flat matte areas for the clothes, trying to create that dissonance between soft painterly areas with hard edged solid areas: