5 posts tagged “art”
And here it is...it's just a one-color (black, obviously) print, since this was my first try at woodblock printing.
The wood was a piece my teacher gave me; it's poplar plywood. The wood was kind of splintery, especially once I got through the first layer.
I did order some nice Japanese printing paper (and some special Shina ply for my next attempt) from McClains printmaking supply, who I am very impressed with. I placed my order online at lunch Monday, and had the package the next day.
The steps in making this print, if you're interested, are below. I basically started with a pencil sketch, which I re-drew in pen and then transferred onto the wood block.
Then I carved the wood, which took several days.
Last night, I made the first six prints! I'll make more, probably, but I'm eager to get on to the next one, which will be a multi-color reduction print, like I did with the lino block, but with wood.
Well, it took most of the weekend and Monday evening, but I finished a little class project: a 4-color linocut block print. Here's a little step-by-step tour of the process.
After doing some thumbnails and color studies, I transferred my final drawing onto a 6x8 inch linoleum block. The colors are printed light to dark, with the largest areas printing first. Each color is cut down to print the next color. Because of this, you can never go backwards; the number of prints you make of the first color is the final number you'll have when you're done. Reading about this, I found that the technique is also called "suicide block" printing, which I thought was kind of cool.
Here's the block cut for the first print; just the areas that I wanted to keep white are cut out.
The design is drawn on in waterproof ink, because I'll have to wash the block as I go along. I have the color studies nearby as I carve, to make sure I'm cutting the right areas each time.
This is the first color, printed and hung up to dry. I did a range of yellows and oranges.
Here's the second color, a lavender purplish-blue.
And the third color, a teal green.
For the last color, black, you can see that the block is almost gone; just the black image is left.
In any case, I had a lot of fun doing this project. It's the first in a series of 6, all of which will be about bees. I'll post them here as I complete them!
It's been a good weekend; even the previous week wasn't the pit of hell I expected it to be. The coming week might be a challenge, but I feel up to it, after a nice, long, creative, sunny weekend. I did a little drawing over the last several days; the silly mantis pastel was just a good exercise, and diverting. I honestly don't know what it's all about, the mantis that's caught itself a rat (must be a big bug).
But I played around with pastels on gouache, all on an old book page from a music book I had sitting around here. I was pretty happy with the result. It's our good old cat, Bridget, from a photo of her sitting in the sun and looking pleased with herself. She seems quite dignified, and a little mischievous, in the painting.
The cats can be tough for me to capture, so I was pretty happy that this one
came out as well as it did. Now I want to try a few more in this vein.
But today, I let myself just relax. I did some laundry, and we went on a nice bike ride in the late afternoon, but much of the day I just sat in the sun and read through the last book in the Philip Pullman series. I am a little surprised at just how much I'm liking those books! I tried to read a Harry Potter a while back, and couldn't even get through the first chapter. I don't like books that "write down," even if they're meant for kids (and I know a lot of people would argue that Rowling doesn't do that, but really, she's no Hemingway). But these Pullman books, despite the young heroes, caught me up in their intricate stories and well-thought-out worlds.
Anyway, I'm almost done with the last one. When I finish, I need to dig up our copy of The Historian; I've been listening to the audiobook in the car and I discovered that it's missing a whole chapter, so I'll just go with the paper version from that point on. It's very good too; I thought it was a little slow at first, but it rallied and now I'm hooked.
So, that's it for this week. We'll see how well I survive the upcoming week, with my boss on vacation and a lot of other vital people out. I'm sure it will be...interesting.
So...spent the day in Renton. It was actually a pretty enjoyable day; I spent most of it sitting at my little table and reading. A steady trickle of people came by, and for the most part, said nice things about my work, and then walked on. Some stayed to chat a bit; that was nice.
The best comments: one lady looked at the kind of odd variety of subject matter and commented, "You should narrow your focus." Shrug...yeah, probably. Smile.
One lady asked me if I made the table and chairs I was sitting at. Uh...nope, bought those at Fred Meyer (I wish I had the metalworking skills to make folding table & chair sets!).
And the best part: one very nice lady bought something! It was my "Morning at Pike Place Market" piece, and I was really happy to let it go to her. She really admired it, and finally drove off to get cash. I think it's going to a good home.
So, an interesting day; I got a lot of reading done, and felt gratitude that I have a day job. If I'd been trying to make money to live off of, I probably would have felt very stressed.
I'll be showing a few pieces at the Renton Artwalk tomorrow; I have six framed drawings and paintings, and a handful of mosaic pieces. This should be interesting; most folks I've mentioned it to respond with, "Renton? Where's that?" Yeah, that's a good question (except that growing up in Kent, I happen to be familiar with all those backwoods, down-south towns).
So, worst case scenario is that I'll hang out in Renton and read for a few hours as people stroll past. Best case: someone actually buys something. I won't hold my breath; instead, I think of this as practice for future shows, and a good experience.
These are some of the pieces I'll have at the show:
