In Print

New Etsy listing and Facebook page

2012-02-05T13:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally got around to making The Jag available on Etsy (at least the british racing green edition). And I'm already working on a new print series, which I'm very excited about. I just took some early proofs of the first plate yesterday - will share soon!

Speaking of sharing, I've also set up a Facebook page for my printmaking activities, under Green Balloon Press - check it out and "like" it to get updates like live shots from the studio (see below), links to Etsy treasuries featuring my work, and other news. I'm exploring how to run sales and promotions on the Etsy shop, so another reason to tune in :)

Annual Print Sale and Show at Fort Mason

2011-11-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again! The annual Fort Mason Holiday Art Show and Sale is coming up on December 2-4, and the Printmaking department will once again have hundreds of prints available to view and purchase from students and faculty of CCSF.

The opening reception is Friday night, from 6pm to 9pm, and the show and sale continues through Saturday and Sunday, from 11am to 5pm.

I will have several prints available, including:

Edition prints and proofs of the Alpha Son poster print
Edition prints and proofs of The Lobster Pot
Edition prints and proofs of the Handyman
Edition prints and proofs of Mont Saint-Michel
Edition prints and proofs of the newest print, The Jag
Edition prints and a proof of Alkmaar Cheese Girl
A couple miscellaneous proofs from the functional building series

As always, I'm really looking forward to the show. It's a great way to pick up original art for reasonable prices, and with the holidays just around the corner there's the chance to find a really unique gift or two.

Hope you can make it!

New Work In Progress: The Jag

2011-10-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a while since I had something new to post - partly due to summer break from CCSF and partly due to working on the edition of the Alpha Son print, now available in my Etsy shop (!)

Now that that is wrapped up, I'm on to the next project. This one will add a third plate to the layered linocut technique. An early proof that was created as part of the offset transfer to the third plate is here:

It shows two of the plates, not fully inked and also not fully cut, but it gives the idea. Colors are yet to be tweaked. Here's a close-up:

And here's the source: a beautiful 1955 Jaguar XK. Challenging to do it justice...

In the studio: Alpha Son color plate

2011-05-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

After proofing the key black plate for "Alpha Son", I transferred the image to another plat and cut away the second colored plate. I remembered to bring my camera into the studio today to capture the work in process in a studio environment.

Both plate on an inking surface, with colors rolled out

I had visions of using the bold colors of some of the original cars I drew from in my second colored plate. Given the bold outlines for each car, I had the option of inking individual cars with unique colors, almost like an a la poupee inking in etching.

After printing the colored plat with selective areas printed; inked black plate in place, ready to print

As I proofed in red with transparent blue and orange with transparent green. there were parts that I liked, but wasn't satisfied by the composition as a whole.

After printing the black plate over the multi-colored printed colored plate

Finally, I tried proofing with an opaque cream on the second plate.

After printing the colored plate inked in opaque cream

I liked bringing the unity of a single color across all the subjects, but keeping the color impact subtle, to enjoy the strong black and white composition of the key black plate.

Cream printed proof on the drying rack

It's always a journey, but I think we are now approaching the edition proof!

Fun, at home print project

2011-04-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to put my printing skills to work for the wedding and besides our little logo, my big project was making the Thank You cards. I decided to try carving rubber instead of linoleum, which I'd heard was easier. Um, it's like carving room temperature butter... which is a little too easy when you're used to linoleum.

I used some grocery bags to ensure a non-oily surface and protect my kitchen table. Tools include rollers, ink, burin, glass slab surface, paper towels, and palette knives

I bought some water based inks to use at home, since I'd prefer to keep things non-toxic if it's close to where I cook (okay, exactly where I cook). I found that the water-based inks dry fairly quickly, so I needed to ad fresh ink after ever couple cards.

Inking two colors took some careful application...

To keep things simple, I inked a single plate with two colors, since I two-plate registration was going to be a problem at home (actually, it's quite possible, but this was also faster when printing in the volumes I needed).

I found that using a paper towel allowed the burin to slide easily and not catch on the paper

The obvious barrier to printing at home is having (or, rather, not having) a press. However, a classmate of mine informed me that traditional Japanese woodblock printing was never done with a press, but rather rubbing a burin. Although I never bothered to verify this factoid, the thought nonetheless encouraged me to try the burin method.

Ta-da!

The end result was not a totally even print, but given the, ahem, rustic looking print, the textured inking seemed fitting.

And so, many cards were made. Now that my forearm has recovered, I'd like to try a new project...

Working Title: Alpha Son

2011-04-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a while since I last posted - I was working on printing full editions of the Mont Saint Michel print and then went back to do an edition of the much enjoyed Lobster Pot print (will be working to get those on the Etsy store soon!). Then I started a couple new linocuts, one of which is quite large, so that took a while. The dimensions are the same as the Zero Sum Game, but I'm planning to develop it into a two-plate linocut that could be made into a book, but would also look nice as a poster.

As for content, I am continuing to explore automotive muses, thanks to my husband. I took several photos at a vintage car driving event and assembled a collage to use as a reference source:

Here's an early proof of the key plate, working title, Alpha Son:

Shout out: Anna Denise of The Yellow Umbrella

2011-03-07T14:44:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have noticed a small links section on the right-hand side of this here blog, including a link to The Yellow Umbrella. The woman behind the blog is the talented and uplifting Anna Denise, who I met years ago when visiting friends studying in the Netherlands. She's always been super supportive of my work, using her internet savvy to track down my earliest forays into showing my art online*.

Barcelona "Wallpaper" by Anna Denise

Well, this month, Anna's work is getting some spotlight as the featured artist on Etsy's Twitter page! With that cause for celebration, I thought I'd give her a well-deserved shout out :) (I didn't want to spoil the surprise of what her featured design is so click through!)

*Appropriately, in an interview on the Etsy blog as part of this project, Anna expounds beautifully on the challenge to balance seeking exposure and finding your "voice" as a young artist.

Shows!

2011-03-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

Shame on me for not getting a post up in time for the opening of "RED" at Bar Basic, where I have two prints on display. Fortunately, the show will be up through April and bar has a great happy hour and frequent visits from food trucks, like TaKorea, so stopping by to check out the show should fit easily into your social calendar :)

But now I just found out that I have a piece showing at MKSF Gallery this Saturday, March 5 from 7pm to 10pm! MKSF Gallery operates in the studio of Mike Kimball, so it will not be open to the public outside of the opening. The event also coincides with two photography exhibits at Arc Studios: "FOTO: Pushing Boundaries" and "BAPC: Cultivating Photography"

1246 Folsom St., Studio 202
San Francisco, CA 94103

"Zero Sum Game" Book, final

2011-01-08T21:39:00.000-08:00

This book project started a couple years ago now and required me to delve into some new topics, like bookbinding, in order to complete my vision. Of course, other projects came up and I'm only now finishing the first set of books (a prototype was completed in September).

See earlier coverage of printing and assembling the core parts of the book here and here.

For the final stages, I carved and printed a cover with a title (inspired by learning about game theory in my micro-economics class taken in my semester off from print making) and solid black back. Unlike the soft cover on the Belize book, this cover and backing were separate and would leave the binding area exposed.

First, gluing inside the front cover...

Once the cover (image side) is affixed, gluing the inside flap...

Once the front and back covers were glued on and dried under a heavy book, I bound the books with black thread, much like standard signature binding, or decorative longstitch (minus the soft cover to stitch through).

Treating each inside page fold as a signature, using a template and heavy duty paper awl to create six holes...

Leaving a tail to tie off in the first signature...

One of the reasons I wanted to leave the binding exposed was to show off the rhythmic stitching...

And repeat... and repeat...

Once I finish the set, I'll take some nicer photos and post one for sale on my Etsy shop!

Experimenting with Mont St Michel print

2011-01-07T15:47:00.000-08:00

This is why I love printmaking: you can start with a core image, or component of an image, and experiment in dozens of ways to find the complete look.

In November, I proofed the first plate of another two-plate linocut of Mont St. Michel. In December, I trialed a number of combinations with a second color, using a plexiglass monoprint plate to ink, etc.

Starting with a simple, solid roll-up..

Printing the ghost of the roll-up achieved a subtler color. In some ways, closer to what I envisioned...

While trying to find the right shade, I pulled out the color in the middle-ground...

Also tried printing color in only the sky...

Finally pulled out the carving tools and cut the second plate

New Work in Progress: Mont Saint Michel

2010-11-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

I rarely work outside the studio, but for various reasons I took home my latest plate last week to get a bit more work done. Unlike etching or aquatint, linocuts are relatively easy to do from home, particularly a small one. The piece I am working on is a 4" x 6" two-plate lino based on a photo I took in Mont Saint-Michel last summer. The photo offered a unique and challenging composition and I may have been subtly influenced by Frans Masereel after Mike Kimball's comment on my lino book post. Since I was able to take a few photos of the plate in progress, I thought would share them now that I have an early proof of the first plate.

Mont Saint-Michel source photo

Plate in process

Plate in process detail

Early proof

Ruffled DIY Contest!

2010-10-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

While this isn't a printmaking project, I wanted to share that the pinwheel boutonnieres I made for our wedding were accepted into Ruffled's DIY Contest.

The judges will be voting soon on 50 different projects, so please help raise my projects' profile by commenting on the entry in ruffledblog.com and sharing with your friends! If you're planning a wedding or event and enjoy crafty projects, I highly recommend Amanda's blog as a resource for great DIY ideas.

New edition - "Handyman"

2010-10-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

As promised, I have proofs of my new edition print. In fact, I've delayed posting so long that I've completed the entire edition - all that's left to do is sign them. The subject is a 1957 Chevy "Handyman" Wagon, which I snapped on a day trip to Bolinas:

Unlike the "Lobster Pot" print, I began this plate with the two-plate lino method in mind:

After some deliberation, I decided on a cyan blue for the base hue:

I haven't done an edition for some time - not since my multiple place aquatint, in fact. While printing an edition can be tiresome, having a sizable stack of prints in hand was very pleasing. Pending final review, the edition set will be up to 35 prints.

I haven't made any final decisions, but I'll have some available edition prints and proofs of the "Handyman" print for sale at the annual Fort Mason Holiday Print Sale, set for December 3-5!

Who's that creature?

2010-10-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

So, it's been quiet around here, but I have my reasons! I took spring semester off printmaking to take that microeconomics class (as well as a couple book binding workshops - woohoo!), and then Anthony proposed in June! So, I've been applying lots of creative energy in that direction, which is not all printing-oriented. Of course, I HAD to create a small lino-cut as the "logo" for the wedding. The big question seems to be what that creature is between our names. Take a guess!

Meanwhile, the printmaking semester started up a couple weeks ago and I am already working on edition prints of a new two-plate lino. I look forward to sharing images of the proofs soon!

New Numbered Notepads and Another Etsy Treasury

2010-07-27T06:51:00.000-07:00

I made another batch of numbered notepads last week and posted them to my etsy shop over the weekend. Sure enough, one of them has already found their way into an etsy treasury!

The treasury will expire, but the curator has included the set on her blog for posterity

Check it out!

Printsy Interview

2010-07-07T07:16:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I made contact with Printsy, a group on Etsy.com focused on printmakers selling their work on Etsy. The group maintains a blog that features a weekly structured interview with different Etsy printmakers, as well as new item listings. It's a great resource (you know I love an organized approach to learning about artists), both for artists looking for insight and inspiration, as well as print lovers and art buyers looking for new works.

Anyway, my interview is featured on the blog this week! Check it out here.
(http://printsy.blogspot.com/2010/07/printsy-interview-dormain-geyer.html)

Blogged!

2010-05-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

My little number prints found their way into the blogosphere!! Well, beyond this here blog, that is...

A fellow Etsy seller created an awesome number-themed collection of various Etsy items. Check it out:

http://mags7575.blogspot.com/2010/05/etsy-poster-sketch-super-fun.html

Decorative Longstitch

2010-04-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

I finally made it back to the San Francisco Center for the Book for another bookbinding workshop. This time, I took a one-day workshop on decorative longstitch with Jody Alexander.

I recreated the class project, using an old aquatint of mine on Rives BFK for a cover. I'm not 100% sure that Rives BFK is sturdy enough, but it's pretty thick. After cutting the cover paper and folding the spine, use a template to mark the holes for both the binding and any decorative stitching in the center.

It's important to do any decorative stitching before proceeding as the center of the binding will not be accessible after the signatures are bound.

Depending on how the spine template has been designed, one or more signature templates will need to be created. My design for 8 signatures was symmetrical, so I needed 4 signature templates. Align the templates to the interior of the signatures and use an awl to puncture at the fold.

As you can see, the signatures should line up to the original binding template when they've all been punctured.

Starting from the inside of the bottom signature, begin sewing it to the spine, leaving a placeholder in the as you double back into the first hole. Similarly, at the end of the first signature, leave a placeholder.

At each end of every signature, which should be outside the spine (above), loop under the stitch immediately below. The second signature will loop where the placeholders were at each end (above).

After looping the stitch (or placeholder) below, re-enter the spine, but without re-entering the signature (below). Then exit through the hole above, in preparation for the next signature.

Once again, loop back under the previous stitch.

Re-enter the puncture just exited, but this time stitch through the next signature again. Continue stitching each signature, repeating the double looping process at each end. At the end of the last signature, tie-off and trim!

After all signatures are attached, fold up the flap for a tight seal. Voila!

Bookbinding

2010-01-11T19:50:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I went back to the San Francisco Center for the Book for a two-day workship on bookbinding. The Bookbinding series continues through VI or VII, but there are a number of non-sequential technique classes that I may look into.There are a lot of specific details that really require demonstration and supervised instruction, but I tried to take notes to help me remember for future attempts.

On the first day, we assembled the text block, using Mohawk paper, and stitched the "signatures" together. The stitching weaves over two fabric tapes and employs kettle stitches about 3/4" from the ends.

The stitched text blocks are locked in a press and the spine is glued. "Super" cloth is then glued between the kettle stitches:

Small headbands are then affixed to the ends, outside the kettle stitches:

The final step of spine preparation is in affixing a thin, strong paper along the entire spine. We used Unryu, but similar papers will suffice.

After measuring our book cloth, we centered and glued the spine

Leaving "gutters" along the spine, we glued down the book board and folded the bookcloth over.

In another variation, the book cloth only covered the spine and a thin margin of the bookboard. Decorative paper was then used to cover the remaining bookboard.

Voila. The finished cover.

The text block is then carefully glued to the cover.

After some final pressing, I am the proud producer of two notebooks!

Lobster Pot

2009-12-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-14T18:26:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-13T09:22:00.001-08:00

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!

2009-11-18T20:58:00.000-08:00

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

2009-09-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T19:43:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-05T13:18:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

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:

Mezzotint

2009-05-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

Continuing to add techniques to my repertoire, I tried a mock mezzotint in the fall of 2008. A true mezzotint creates a black plate by rocking a gritty surface on the plate, but without the necessary tools I just double aquatinted the plate to make it really, really black.

The idea with mezzotint is that you start with a black plate and burnish out the image. To make it a little easier on myself (and enjoy the nice black that I had created to start with), I used a photo taken at night aboard the SS Red Oak Victory in the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond. A friend was performing a play on board the ship about Rosie the Riveter, who was based on the women who worked in the Kaiser Shipyards during WWII.

"Float" On

2009-05-25T17:17:00.000-07:00

After summer break, I decided to ease myself back into printmaking in the fall of 2008 with a basic aquatint:

Anthony and I had visited the Huntington Gardens over the summer and I used a photo of the water lilies as my source material:

Printing black ink on white paper seemed a bit harsh, so I experimented with inking in different colors and printing on different colored paper. I also printed a couple with chine colle to add a bit of color.

"Goodwill" book

2009-05-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

After completing the two-plate linocut series, Anita asked me if I would consider binding a set of the prints into a book. I liked the idea, but didn't think that four images was enough, so I decided that I would insert pages of text between each image:

There was no narrative story for the series, but the theme of functional buildings lent itself to economic themes. During the spring of 2008, the storm clouds of the impending financial disaster and economic recession were gathering on the horizon. Oil prices remained high, food shortages threatened political stability in many nations, and the collapse of the housing bubble was beginning to take its toll on financial institutions.

I consume a vast amount of news in my day job as a financial analyst, most of it about specific corners of technology, but I headlines about global issues, social change, and green technology are often too interesting to me to ignore.

I sifted through articles that I had read and bookmarked during the months that I had been working on the print series and found a set of articles that fit with my functional building series. The most obvious was an article on wind turbines to go with the windmill print.

Themes that I found across all the articles were notions of scarcity and hope. As a fundamental tenet of economics, the idea of scarcity reflected the economic role of the functional buildings represented.

Hope was just what made the articles exciting to me. While all the stories dealt with the challenges of scarcity, they offered a glimpse of progress.

I considered titling the book Scarcity, but felt that it didn't capture the optimism I wanted to convey. Goodwill (and other Intangible Assets) is of course an accounting pun, and hence loosely tied to economics, but it is also undeniably positive in tone.

The text was added using a monoprint method for transferring printed material, which means that the book is one-of-a-kind, for now. I used proofs of some of the darker tone plates for the inside covers and recycled some wrapping paper for the outside cover. The wanted the natural imagery of the cover to contrast the symbols of development in the series.

Two-plate linocut series

2009-05-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

In the spring of 2008, one of our assignments was to create a series of two-plate linocuts. Initially, I had no intention of trying to do an entire series, but wanted to try the technique:

Like reduction linocuts, multiple-plate linocuts allow for color images, but production volume does not have to be decided at the outset. For the simple two-plate print, the plate designed for the darkest color is prepared first, and then the image is transferred to the second plate:

The second plate carries the medium tone and only needs to be cut where the white of the paper should show through, as the darker color will cover the medium tone. Like multiple-plate aquatints, a system of registration is required:

For my first plate, I used an image of a windmill that came on a tin for Trader Joe's stroopwafels. I was so pleased that I decided to attempt the series, using functional buildings as the theme.

I wanted to do the Rua Reidh lighthouse in Gairloch, Scotland, where I had stayed a night on my way to the Isle of Skye. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any pictures that I liked, but Anthony told me about the beautiful Split Rock Lighthouse in his home state of Minnesota:

On that second set of plates, I also began experimenting with a rainbow roll-up for the medium tone plate. It added some nice depth to the image and became a standard for later prints.

My third set of plates was for a barn and silo, which lacked some of the interesting shapes and patterns from the first two, but I began to explore making the lines from the cuts part of the image's texture (see the cloud above), rather than trying to create solid blocks of color.

The last set of plates in the series, the factory, embraced the cut lines much more in a way that I think added to the composition.

Oops! Forgot the salt

2009-05-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

After basic line etching, but before learning aquatint, I tried another line drawing technique that used soft instead of hard ground. While hard grounds are fairly impervious and are removed with the point of needle for creating clean lines, soft grounds respond to more subtle touches. Touching a soft ground will expose the grooves of a fingertip, allowing acid to bite a fingerprint on the surface. This means more care must be taken when handling the plate, but it also allows for more natural looking drawings, with thin and thick edges of a pencil:

I wasn't particularly excited about my soft ground self portrait as it lacked punch. So when we learned a salt etching technique, I reused the plate:

Melting salt on the plate removes hard ground in a grainy pattern. The salt can be arranged on the plate to create the desired image, but I chose to use the salt as if it were resin for an aquatint. It created a looser, grainier dot matrix, that I exposed in several stages with lighter areas progressively protected, much like an aquatint.

I actually laid a second salt ground to get even darker areas and more contrast. I then tried printing with a transparent color rolled over the plate.

Multiple plate aquatint

2009-04-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

Multi-colored linocuts can be done with a single or multiple plates, but in aquatint, there's not single plate option (unless you count a la poupee). However, the concept of printing one color at a time in perfectly aligned layers still applies. After etching a basic line drawing, that image can be transfered to a number of additional plates, which are each aquatinted for a specific color. Once the plates have been made, it still takes some playing around to find the exact color inks needed for the desired effect.

This technique is what my instructor, Anita Toney, focuses on herself. I'm also inspired by Sarah Newton's awesome aquatint and recently got to see one of her multiple plate pieces up close.

Reduction linocut

2009-04-21T05:21:00.000-07:00

Building on basic mono-chromatic linocuts, reduction linocuts achieve multiple color, but only using a single plate/block. The limitation is that there are a finite number of prints that can be made and that number is decided at the outset.

To start, I cut only the places that I want to be white - once the linoleum has been cut out, it doesn't print. Standard practice is to print the lightest color first, using a system of registration to ensure that later prints align to the initial color. It's a good idea to print more than your planned edition to allow for mistakes and color testing.

After all prints (including extras) were pulled, I cut out the areas that I wanted to be the initial color that I printed. In this particular print, there were only a few changes (compare a proof of the first print, top, with the second print, above). Using the system of registration, I printed the second color on top of the first set of prints. This process is repeated with progressively darker colors, until all colors have been printed.

Linocut Portrait

2009-04-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

After my first crack at a linocut, I wanted to try again and really focus on creating depth, which is challenging in linocut. I'm totally inspired by Noah Dasho's linocuts and have bought one of his "Optimism" prints. I used a familiar image to minimize the variables.

"Drive"

2009-04-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

After my first crack at aquatint, I have to say that my spirits were lifted and I wanted to try more. Since I like doing portraits (of friends, family, and even myself!), I decided to give that a try and used a picture of my friend Jackie, taken by either her or her boyfriend:

I thought the aquatint was pretty successful, and I like the photo, so I decided to use it again in my first linocut. Sometimes it makes it easier to use an image that you've already analyzed to try a new technique:

After tweaking some things on the linocut, I tried adding color with chine colle.

Introducing Aquatint...

2009-04-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

Technically, you have to walk before you can run and you have to etch a line before you can aquatint a plate. But I didn't immediately take to line-etching, so after practicing the technique, I quickly moved on to try aquatint, using a photo taken of my dad in Toledo in the 1970s as a source image:

After creating the plate, I also experimented with inking it with multiple colors a la poupee (below):

Drypoint and oil self portraits

2009-04-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, I think we're ready to come back to the acetate drypoints, but by now you should gather that I like doing portraits. Sometimes with portraits, I think you have the most flexibility doing a self-portrait, so I decided to give that a try after finished doing some cityscapes:

This was the semester when we were attempting to combine etchings with monoprint, so I added some monoprint:

Kept going with the monoprint...:

I used the same photograph that I had taken of myself and tried another monoprint technique which involves painting directly on the plate:

I think things came out a little smoother on my second attempt, which may or may not be better:

Stencil Portraits - Dad

2009-04-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

I decided to give the stencil technique another try to make sure Megan wasn't a fluke. Using an old photo of my dad as a young man, I made a similar series of monoprints:

Stencil Portrait - Megan

2009-04-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, I got a little ahead of myself with the drypoints because there were actually a couple sets of stencil monoprints that I produced before picking up the needle.

Using a photograph I had taken of my friend Megan, I created a stencil that I could use to print both the positive and negative space.

I experimented with several configurations. The print above is an inked stencil printed over a ghost with some added texture near the edges. Below is using only one half of the stencil, allowing the roller marks to show.

Using some of the ghosts that I had created, which lacked contrast, I began printing over the background with a fresh roll up (below):

I think of the print below as the most successful, mostly by accident. The skin area is a single ghost from a red roll-up and the black is a fresh roll-up onto the stencil. The background is a ghost of the background added to the print above, printed on top of the original ghost (that created the skin color). So, basically this is where trial and error got me:

Drypoint Cityscapes

2009-04-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

Into my second semester of monoprint, I was starting to get anxious to get into some more detailed line drawing. I also love the repeatable nature of most printmaking (hence my use of stencils in monoprint):

Without jumping quite into the etching pool (hmm, that would probably be filled with acid, huh? not good for swimming), I played around with some drypoint on sheets of acetate. Using some photos I had taken, I did a sketch of the Transamerica Pyramid here in SF (above) with an overlay of a nice pattern from some wrapping paper.

I also did a little sketch of The Dom cathedral in Utrecht (above) and the Teatro di Marcello in Rome (below). Each drypoint is only good for about a dozen prints at most

Bamboo

2009-03-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

We're fast-forwarding a bit here to post-college (which was a bit sparse on the art front, and whatever drop-in figure drawing sketches I had I can no longer find). After getting settled in SF, I enrolled in printmaking classes at CCSF's Fort Mason campus.

That semester happened to be monoprint, so I experimented with some stencils and was pleased at the time with how some of these bamboo prints came out. Plate size is 8x10" - sorry about the crooked pictures!

I think my favorite is still this one (below) with the inked stencil over a solid ghost:

More Old Skool

2009-03-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple more from deep in the archive:

Your portfolio must-haves of foreshortening (above) and draped fabric (below). Speaking of draped fabric, I was recently blown away by Drago Persic's paintings at The Armory Show:

I don't know what you call this technique of using axes around the subject, but I'm pretty sure this was the only time I did it. The figure is my classmate, Christian Dietkus, who was an amazing painter and went on to CooperUnion. Really curious what he's working on now:

Hands and Feet

2009-03-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

So, after working on my Arteaser blog for six months or so, I've been creatively re-energized, as well as more excited about blogging and social media in general. I've decided to start posting some of my own work to share with friends, contacts from Arteaser who are curious, and anyone else who comes along.

I always like to start stories at the beginning (I know, how boring of me!), so I thought I would put up a few studies from my earlier years, before I discovered printmaking. I think these hands and feet studies were done in sophomore year of high school, or thereabouts.