Lobster Pot

My mother spent the summer working in Cape Cod, and Anthony and I went out to visit her at the end of the season. We took the ferry from Boston to Provincetown and explored a bit before heading down to Brewster. I found a couple cute, old-fashioned establishments around the town, including The Lobster Pot:

I was anxious to get back to linocut, so I used this picture as a source for a 6"x6" lino plate.

After some deliberation, I decided to add a second black plate. Normally when doing a two-plate lino print, I start with the black "key" plate and use that to add the mid-tone color plate. Working backwards was a little tricky, but I'm pleased with the result:

Alkmaar Cheese Girl

Anthony and I went to Europe this summer, primarily visiting some friends living in Amsterdam for the year. One day, we went to the cheese market in Alkmaar. It was pretty touristy, but I snapped a couple pictures of the participants in their traditional dress:

I used this photo as a source for a line etching. There's quite a bit of foul bite on the plate, which I expected after seeing how the ground had rolled out, but I was curious if it would add some character to the otherwise sparse background...

My next step was to add the key colors with chine colle. I did a set of eight with the color, two of which already have a home!

Numbers

Earlier this semester, I started another etching book, similar in structure to the Belize book. The subject was numbers, represented in symbol with the name written out.

I intentionally left the etching as a simple line drawing so that I could experiment with monoprint. I did a handful of books (will post later), but also printed the individual numbers on paper scraps, seen here.

As a bit of a nerd, I guess I have a thing for flashcards, so there was something really appealing about making these little cards.

Holiday Print Show and Sale!

Our annual holiday print show and sale is coming up! I will be volunteering at the opening reception on Friday, December 4 from 5:30pm  and then again on Saturday from 11am to 2pm. Most of the sales happen during the Friday reception, but continue Saturday and Sunday from 11:30am to 4:30pm.


Many of my talented classmates and instructors will also have prints for sale. Last year I bought quite a few prints, which now adorn our walls. 20% of the sales go to the City College Art Department and the rest goes to the artist.


I will have about 40 prints in the show, including:

• Variations of the functional building series;
• Variations of the Float aquatint;
• A couple of the drypoint cityscapes;
• Variations of the Hummingbird monoprints;
• Unbound proofs of the linocut "filmstrip" book;
• And some new prints that have yet to be documented!!

Hope you can check it out!

Personalized holiday card etching

I actually made this plate and started printing copies at the beginning of the year, but as it was a gift for Anthony's folks, I didn't want to post anything until I had delivered it to them. I took a photo of their house in Minnesota last Christmas and used it to make a little line etching holiday card. I got the idea after helping Anthony's mom prepare some of the many holiday cards that they send out. The set of 50 that I made won't be enough for there entire list, but intaglio etchings aren't exactly the most efficient way to print cards!

All wrapped up and ready to go!

Yay! Presents!

SF linocut book project, continued

Now that class is underway again at CCSF, I'm moving along on my latest linocut book. I've trimmed, folded, and pasted together seven books and now need to figure out how I want to bind them. In the meantime, one of the folded copies will be put on display in Building B of Fort Mason, along with the Belize book, my mezzotint, and an uncut print of this book.

Etsy shop!

As indicated, I did set up an Etsy shop to sell the letterpress birthday cards I recently made. I'd like to add some more items, but I'm not sure where to start. Any suggestions?

More Letterpress

I took Letterpress III at the San Francisco Center for the Book, which was a class project to produce a poetry chapbook:

I was responsible for the strip of paper that would wrap around the book. The poem had a lot of natural imagery, so I went with that:

I also worked on a small batch of birthday cards (below). I think I'm going to try to package them up and sell them on my Etsy shop.

City College starts up again in a couple weeks, so I should have more to share soon!

Letterpress Thank You card

For my second letterpress class at the San Francisco Center for the Book, we were teamed up with a partner to create a small set of cards using two colors. My partner, Aaron, was a software engineer who was just about to start an MFA in graphic design. Neither of us wanted to do holiday cards and since we both had somewhat geeky backgrounds, we thought of a technology-inspired thank you card. He thought of the IM-style text and I had already started imagining using lines vertically. We decided to make one of the lines the text color to make it a bit more interesting.

Linocut book in process

I liked making the Belize book so much, that I decided to do another one using linocut instead of etching.

The squares are 4x4, which makes it much easier for linocut. The source photos were from a shoot that I was in for an SF Zero game in 2007.

The idea behind the shoot was to create a film noir feel on various San Francisco sites.

The images already had a strong graphic quality to them, which is great for linocut.

Unlike the Goodwill book and the Belize book, this one will not have any text and will just rely on the images to imply a story.

I managed to take a couple of good proofs before the semester ended, but I may still tweak some things.

I'm considering creating a second plate in the fall to add color.

I'll keep you posted ;)

Letterpress

While I was working on my first book in the spring of 2008, I stopped by the Book Arts and Printers Fair at Fort Mason, where I found a booth for the San Francisco Center for the Book. They offered letterpress classes, but they were often when I was not available and filled up quickly. By the spring of 2009, my interest in book-making had only grown and I happened to find an open class on a Saturday when my normal printmaking class would not meet for Spring Break. I jumped on the opportunity to take Letterpress I:

I gained a new appreciation for the printed word and left/right justification. Incidentally, I will be taking Letterpress II today. After I complete Letterpress III, I will be able to rent time on the machines for my own projects!

Belize book

In the spring of 2009, I started a somewhat ambitious project of printing a small book using a single plate. With twelve 3x3 squares on my planned plate, I selected some photos from the trip that Anthony and I took to Belize in December 2007:

I did a simple line etching and then watercolored the print, which adds quite a bit of labor.

Once printed and watercolored, the print is cut into strips and glued together into one long strip that can be folded.

I used a monoprint for the cover and added the title with chine colle.

Random mono series

With only a couple days left in the semester, I didn't want to start another big project and I had been itching to play with colors, so I decided to do a couple monoprints:

Using the same image for the Float plate, I created a quick drypoint etching on acetate. I made a little hummingbird stencil and loosely rolled out some bright colors (ohh do I love red):

I kept working the ghosts, playing with the effects of dripping oily inks across the plate: