That's How We Like It, and More of the Same

This started as a very simple collage of two prints, with a some colored pencil, some years ago. I framed & hung it, but it was lackluster. Thread and dried rose petals treated in gloss medium & acrylic varnish were added to the work about a year ago, but it was only this week that I decided to continue the collage out onto the mat. And an urn was added to the piece, to echo the shapes and motif of the statue with a little brighter & lighter touch.

I hope that it is finished now!!

Galatea in the Midnight Garden

This big empty-headed bird has been very frustrating!

But now I almost like it…

I may create a second “plate” to put a skull into that empty head.

Hate this squishy stuff. It might be “Moo Carve” but I have had it a while so I am not sure. And I need to keep my tools organized, so I keep a set of blades for the soft stuff… they need to be very sharp, and the ones I used here are not. I was carving real linoleum with the same blades, and that was just stupid

I finally made a “good” poly litho plate, and no less than 4 prints from it! New rule: start with clean wetting solution (stuff in jug at print shop had mold in it!).

And this is using a laser copier to create the plate, starting from an original pencil drawing. First I made a darker copy, then copied that to the poly litho plate. Because the plate was smaller than 8.5″ x 11″ I taped it to a sheet of copier paper (using this as a carrier sheet).

It was inked with Portland Black Gamblin relief ink (a little too soft, I think) and printed to a cheap mulberry paper sold for relief printing. The marks across the top are where traces of tape adhesive picked the ink. These were rather interesting until I scraped to try to remove them… next time I will use a larger plate.

Two Worked Distressed Litho Plates Scanned

These are two distressed litho plates. They had become so scummy and covered with ink, that I despaired of them. But I can’t throw things away easily, so I started scrubbing, and decided they had their own potential.

So after an hour of cleaning, scratching, re-rubbing and a bit more sharpie , I scanned the plates. I like the little bit of purple sharpie on them, but these scans are converted to greyscale.

I can no longer see the forest OR the trees, BUT I really like the mystery!

Thumbnails of the Three Prints Submitted

Days & hours in the print shop, without a decent, let alone good, finished product… darn! So I am submitting 3 images of 2011 prints to the upcoming juried print show: The Printmaker’s Hand II. These are prints I love, but I had hoped to produce a new masterpiece this past week or so!

I wish that print shop magic had happened! But much of making art is just “showing up” (this actually means slogging away / working hard!)

Here is a concept piece for on of the ideas I am struggling with. This image uses a scan of my print from a new poly litho plate that creates an extremely boring print. But the print has been adjusted darker, and has three digital color layers added.

I had a lot of problems with the poly litho yesterday! Probably my ink was much too soft, and I think the new sharpies are just not working with this process: the purple certainly was not taking the ink at all! And the wetting solution may have had too much gum arabic… so then I reworked and reworked the plate just to get something to print! Soon I no longer had the motive to do anything right, and my additions with a working sharpie were just filling in with no sense of the drawing.

This is the start of a new piece, but I don’t know where it will go yet. I think of it as a life boat tossed in a stormy sea! But as usual, I drew something larger than my “paper” size, so it is cut off at the right. I do that a lot, as a reaction to the oft heard general admonition to fully use the paper, rather than working small?