Linocut Portrait

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"

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...

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

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

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

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

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