Collagraph: "Raven"

I just wrapped up a four day, four week, collagraph workshop at Josephine Press. You can see examples of some of my student's work on the JP blog, here. Collagraphs are pretty fun, especially for someone new to printmaking. The plates are made out of all manner of stuff, much of it just garbage, and all glued down to a simple, cheap substrate like chipboard. I tore the back off an old calendar for this one. After gluing all the pieces down to the substrate, the plate is sealed with a couple of layers of acrylic medium to protect it from the ink and solvents applied to it. I made two demo prints for the class. The first was a little house print, and the second was this raven collagraph. The plate is made with modeling past on a chipboard substrate. I cut the chipboard to the shape of the raven and then messed around with acrylic modeling paste to get the feathers and other features of the bird. Below are two prints, the the raven printed in conjunction with another plate, and then the ghost print of just the raven.

Monotype: "The Crowd, II"

This is the third of the monotypes I made for my recent solo show at GCAC, The Disagreement. I drew my sculptures for it, and tried to place them in a world that gave them a little illustrative mentions without removing them from the gallery context. Which is to say, I wanted the environment I put them in in the monotype to mimic the sterility of the gallery. Here's the sculpture, "They've Already Left," depicted in the print, with and without hordes of people:

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.

"The Crowd I" Monotype

This is a monotype from my last solo show, The Disagreement. Like the last one, it's on 29" by 41" Arches paper and made with rubber based black ink, cut with varying degrees of flash oil.  For such a simple image, it took me ages to draw.  Keeping edges and the plate clean is a struggle with monotype, so I always had a bottle of isopropyl alcohol on hand to help tidy up fingerprints and to dip a Q-tip into to sharpen up the edges.

In printmaking, a print designates that something is reproducible in some way.  A monoprint is a print that is one of a kind, but incorporates something reproducible, like if I had used a woodcut or stencil in conjunction.  But, since this is entirely hand painted before printing, it is a monotype. My friend Tim Musso and I just started having a monthly crit group. We met for the first time last night, and discussed each other's recent work and then set goals or homework for ourselves to fulfill by the time we meet next month. I showed him this and two other monotypes. One of my issues is the need to have small sellable work that can compliment my sculpture without distracting from it or being too illustrative. I don't know yet if these fulfill those requirements for me.

"Didn't Know" Monoprint

This monoprint, entitled "Didn't Know," is on 29" by 41" Arches paper and made with rubber based black ink, cut with varying degrees of flash oil.  It took me about 8 hours to paint it onto the plexiglass plate using Q-tips, bits of rag, and a brush, and then printed it in a single pass. Layering a few more plates of ink onto it would probably look good, but I don't trust my single person registration skills on a piece this large.

The figure mimics the sculpture "But I didn't know" though the monoprint was made after the sculpture, not as a preparatory study.

Here's a girl having her picture taken in front of it like it's a tourist destination:

"The Disagreement" solo exhibit

I just had the second reception for my solo exhibit, "The Disagreement," last weekend.  It was packed with people.  I had no idea that the Santa Ana artwalk was so popular but it is.  I sold quite a few small items priced under a $100, which means I didn't lose any money on the show which is always a risk.  Galleries cover quite a bit of the costs of putting on a show, but by no means all of them.

People takes pictures with things far more now than I recall being popular in the past.  It's funny to see people use sculptures as backdrops for photographs, as though they had the same personal historic value as a landmark.  

 

I made three new monoprints for this show, to be blogged about shortly. 

A young artist asked for my autograph, and then another did the same a few minutes later.  It's strange because I'm by no means famous, but I suppose that a solo show looks pretty successful if it's something you've never done yourself.

The staff at GCAC were fantastic, helpful, and really kind.  There were three exhibits going on in the complex simultaneously, including mine, and they kept the crowd in check pretty effectively.  

"The Disagreement" is show at GCAC, Closed Mondays

Tuesdays - Sundays 11:00 am - 4:00 pm.
Extended hours: Friday & Saturday 11:00am – 7:00 pm.
(First Saturday of the month galleries are open until 10:00 pm

The show ends on June 24th.

Postcards for pals, part 3

Three new postcards sent to pals who live far afield from my home in Los Angeles. Linocut, screenprint, and watercolored postcard sent to Joey Behrens in Ohio:

Colored pencil and monoprint postcard sent to Paul Kaloper in South Dakota:

Linocut, monoprint, and chine colle with hand coloring sent to Miguel Aragan in Austin, TX:

RipRap, 34

Here it is, my first book cover job. Ah, so exhausting this was. I designed the imagery given the few themes that loosely unified the contributing artists and writers: that they were in California, and mostly attend(ed) California State University, Long Beach. From that, I riffed on the California flag for the bear imagery and kept the palate pretty muted, because hey, you don't hire me because you were expecting neons, do you? The anthology was made in an edition of 650, with 50 of those being part of the deluxe edition and printed on dark blue paper with gun metal grey foiling on the text. Even though it's not "deluxe" I think I prefer the regular colorway on the grey paper. If you're interested, I have some of the left over state proofs for sale here on my etsy.

And hey, look, here some unflattering pictures of me screenprinting this massive edition and all of the covers laid out to dry on my studio floor:

Postcards for pals, part 2

As part of my project to send out a printed handmade postcard to a friend for each day of April, Sent to Tommy H. in Chicago:

Sent to Colin Roe Ledbetter in Kansas:

Sent to Nate and Debbie in Salt Lake City:

And here's Sarah's postcard in its new environment:

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: