More development as the Persimmon readies for its debut!

Ah, winter. How you mock me! The benefit to having a studio in the basement is that it is nice and cool in the summer time...which means I freeze my butt off in the winter. Often, my hands get chapped and I have lotion nearby but sometimes I can't feel wether or not my hands are too oily in the cold. So when I went to peel the pasted registration prints from the color blocks it became apparent that yeah, my hands were still greasy. Luckily, the masa didn't put up too much of a fight and the oiled part of the block happened to be a spot that was going to get chipped out anyway.

Here are all the blocks to be used in this print. The dark one with the chips of veneer that remain is going to be the light blue quatrefoil pattern. This one gave me fits. The wood under the veneer (it was 3-ply Shina) was very splintery so when I went to clear out an area near one of the diamonds part of the grain that ran underneath a print area came right out. Much cursing ensued but Mr. Wood Glue bottle saved the day. Yay! My hero! I am very proud of the dark blue area block that you can see below.

I am madly in love with Islamic art and architecture and the geometric patterns are reminiscent and the carve marks resemble muquarnas. Look up muquarnas. They rock heavy.

Even though I loath doing it for someone else, I love framing my own work. I hate frame making, and mat cutting, and I won't go within 6 miles of glass cutting but give me all those elements prefab and I will go to town. I framed the Diospyros Virginiana Quatrefoil painting and have it near during the printing of the Diospyros Virginiana Quatrefoil edition for color reference. I already know what I'm getting into with the title. There is no way in hell I'm writing that title out 50+ times in addition to signing and numbering. That's why mama has a letterpress! :)

The first color I'm doing is a very light golden orange. It came out more yellow but when I checked the painting that's what I had painted anyway. The bokashi will dominate everything anyway so I'm not too worried. Here they are hanging out in their little trash bag nest. I was originally going to save the last two blocks for the demo but I think I'll just do one because it's taking longer than I thought. I will be retaining one of each stage in printing anyway. I am planning on arranging them in consecutive order and framing them so that when people visit they will have a visual and I won't have to look like such a dingbat explaining it all. And now for a dark moment.......noting the glazed look people get when I explain it anyway I don't think they care. Ah "empty-pocketed-artist-cynicism", can you smell it? My studio is starting to positively wreak of it. That's when I whip out my handy aerosol "smile-and-act-like-you-don't-want-to-choke-the-people-who-show-up-every-first-friday-without-fail-and-drink-up-all-the-wine-and-eat-up-all-the-food-that-the-artists-have-to-pay-out-of-pocket-for-and-then-leave-without-buying-so-much-as-a-three-dollar-card"

There.

I said it.

What got into me?

I have NO IDEA!!!! But I like it!! After two weeks of fussing around with the fig stuff I'm blowing through work on the persimmon! This is the original sketch all painted up! Now it really looks like stained glass. I might revisit this effect as it's rater fun. The "stained glass" lines (measurements lines) will not show up in the print and I wonder if that will detract but I'm not concerned at the moment.

Just wanted to share the image of my desktop. Note the funny little pan of dimples with color. This turned out to be a great color pallet that is very convenient too. It was used as packing for something about a year ago when my husband bought computer supplies. It wasn't recyclable and I hate to continue to accrue things I don't need but his came very in handy. After I finished the painting I was able to pull some proofs of the persimmon block to make color blocks.

I left my bokuju ink at the studio and had some thinner sumi ink instead. I had a bad experience once with a bottle of indian ink I did all but weld the top onto but it bleed everywhere into my bag anyway during transit. If ink was to be spilled, I didn't want it to be my bokuju! This stuff was a lot runnier and the initial prints show it but after warming the block up a little and letting the paper air out a little things tightened up. Here is the proof of the persimmon. Tomorrow is color block carving day!!

Know thy self

Words to live by....so my figs painting burnt me out. Not that I may not come back to it but it makes me sick to look at it for the moment.
Last year I had an open house at the McGuffey Art Center with all sorts of food and wine and it was fun while it lasted. Less to participate in McGuffey's annual open house, it was more of an opportunity for family and friends to come see my new studio. After it was all over and I was scrubbing punch and candy off the floor, I thought to myself that I would not be doing this again next year. Haha. So, I will be participating in McGuffey's open house but instead of having food I will be displaying all my artworks and hopping to jazz the place up (as much as possible anyways) to look like a small gallery. I will be doing a Japanese Woodblock Printing demo from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm. People usually don't know anything about printmaking and this would definitely be a treat for them to see what Moku Hanga entails.
I subscribe to a few magazines because I enjoy their aesthetic for the most part. Two of my favorites are Country Living and Domino and one of them recently featured an article on persimmons that focused on a local industry here in Nelson County, VA called Edible Landscaping. Trouble is I can't remember which one. At any rate, the graphics done for the article were beautiful and they shot some asian persimmons resting on some geometric textiles. I was struck by the beauty of the calyx on the fruit. The leafy area around the stem of a fruit is usually not noteworthy but the beautiful wooden flower that rims the persimmon is quite attractive. Because we have a indigenous species of persimmon here in Virginia and because I am in love with Islamic art and architecture, I thought this would be a perfect print for the opening. It was until I lost the article.
Confident that I needed the article in order to complete my "perfect" design, I set the project aside and set about designing a new print. I wanted to illustrate to people that for Moku Hanga the completed image (painting) comes first. (Know thy self!) This was not my process so of course I got bored with my fig FAST! For me, unless I really need to know what is going down for registration, I normally sketch something then carve it and figure out the colors later. I usually do paintings as a way to get instant gratification and to relax. I normally do not get the urge to make a print run for a painting. In fact, for the Book of Life project, I am making some paintings as a tool for color block orientation. So the intention of a print is driving the creation of a painting not vice versa. While taking yet another break from from painting the blasted fig, I leafed through one of my Domino magazines and an article on quatrefoils popped up. My mind was made up at that moment that I was going to do a persimmon print come hell or high water!

With the help of Google I found some native virginia persimmons to sketch and sat down with a ruler and compass and fiddled around with some geometrical designs. I whipped it into my scanner, flipped it backwards in photoshop, viola! I carved the persimmon key yesterday. There will be five blocks and one or two bokashi on the fruit. Today I'm waiting for some mulberry to soak up water to pull the registration proofs for colors. I don't have the heart to erase my measure marks. They look like stained glass so I think I will leave them.

Okay, so as always there is a danger of cutting oneself but I must admit I take a little pride in this one. I have a large shallow U-gouge I use for clearing that I had bought from McClain's a few years back. There is a metal ferrule at the end for a mallet but my block was so small and made of shina I figured I could just push it through. It was like putting a hot knife in butter! At one point, I had the knife in the wood with one hand and I stopped to pull my shirt collar out. As I held the knife forward, I drew my hand back to grab my collar and my finger slid over the top corner of the knife. I didn't feel any pain but as I continued to carve my finger started to itch. I checked and sure enough I had accidentally cut myself. No biggie but I am proud that after years of care my blade is still surgically sharp!

Holiday Figs

So, I need to have a piece to print for the Holiday Open House at the McGuffey Art Center when my demonstration goes down in Studio Zero at 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm on December 13th. If this isn't ready then I'll drag out an old woodblock but I like to have something fresh going on. This has got to be one of the worst scans I've done but this is the design for a piece called "Figs" that I want to print. I stopped at this point because I broke one of my cardinal rules and that is not to do any color work at night because my cones have just about had it. I'm not too worried about it though because I started painting when the sun was up and haven't wandered very far in my pallet. The image is about 3.75" X 3.75". After about 4 hours of painting, I have completed a few leaves and two fruit. Sad isn't it? Actually, I'm not sure those two fruit are in the final stages but that is where I will leave them until tomorrow. At any rate, all this insane Vermeer style painting is not going to be reflected in the print. That is not my goal with this print but it will illustrate the differences between painting and print and how both are beautiful in their own right. I could do a photo-intense print with all sorts of bokashi and such but 1. I need to get to gett'n on my New Years exchange designs and my July show work and 2. there is no way that would be ready in time for the demo! Can't wait to finish the painting though..... maybe in sixty years with my 3 haired brush...... maybe I should be committed!

McGuffey Holiday Open House!

On December 13, 2008, the McGuffey Art Center will be having a Holiday Open House from 10:00am until 4:00pm! There will be open studios, activities for the kids, light refreshments, demonstrations, loads of handmade gifts in the gift store, and the entire building is plastered with wonderful works of art from our McGuffey Member Artists! I will be hosting an open studio with tons of my work available from everything to stocking stuffers to one of a kind artist books and paintings. Come see the cut tree books in person! It's like walking through a snowy forest! I will also be demonstrating the process of Japanese Woodblock Printing in the afternoon. Come on down and enjoy the holiday fun!

Farm People in Ink

Well, the print came out well but the journey there was hell. In shopping around, I decided to support Graphic Chemical as opposed to just an "art" store. What I'm about to say will amount to a fluke in production that is not related Graphic Chemical as a company, rather, shame on Speedball. I transferred a few of my drawings onto lino-blocks and began cutting away at the work horse one. While carving, I began to get a funny sensation when I carved in certain areas. It didn't take long before I would start to hear a fibrous pulling sound when revisiting these areas. I stopped carving and held my block up to eye level so I could see the sides. Sure enough, there were little dark gaps riddling the burlap layer around the entire perimeter of the block. I tugged at the sides and both ends of linoleum popped up from the block. The middle remained somewhat fixed to the block but in hind site I should have pulled the whole thing off. I was afraid to at the time because I wasn't sure I could get it registered on the block right. Apparently, there was too little glue laid down to adhere the linoleum to the wood. In some places, there was simply none. I slathered the ends with wood glue and let it rest under some books for a day before I resumed carving.
My original intent was to use these sets of blocks to print on the blank sides of envelopes. Why oh why did I ever come up with that idea. Trying to set that up on the pilot was a nightmare. (Anyone who has ever run a platen press will tell you that they hate broad areas of pigment and they hate multiple layers of opposing paper.... like envelopes.) Anytime I would go to print the layers would hazily read through the image. I had three options: 1. unfold a few hundred envelopes, print, then re-glue 2. adhere tiny registration tabs to a few hundred envelopes and then run them through my hand roll Vandy 3. abandon the project for the moment and just do a straight collectible print edition. Option 3 was looking better and better since unfolding and re-gluing a few hundred envelopes was hardly worth 1.50 an envelope and I'm not even going to address hand rolling and registration tabs on that one. In the end, a lot of sweet talk to the Pilot press yielded my Work Horse in print. And, boy, did he make me work for it. Now I'm going to go enjoy a nice hot cup of cocoa with creme de menthe.

More Farm People!

I have to say that this project is so much fun! I try to spend as little time on it as I am engrossed in the Book of Life project but it is such a treat to render these creatures and a great way to blow off steam. I do have to reference photos for animal conformation and I just love period clothing from the twenties and thirties. In my undergrad years at the Corcoran, we had a professor that did hours at a local library. Amazingly, there was a lot of turn over in their stacks. She would bring in boxes and boxes of books that were not popular or damaged. I got quite a few priceless books from those piles. One of them that I have been using for reference for period clothing is titled "A True Likeness (The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts: 1920-1936)." There are such a diversity of images in that book. One page is a couple decked out in lavish furs and suits, another is a baby in a wash basin, another would be a family of share croppers, another might be a death portrait. It's a great book to check out.
This project is not only rewarding because I get to decide which animals and breeds I will be doing but it's also fun to decide what they will wear! This dapper gentleman has a watch fob because I figured that nothing would be more attractive to a chicken than a sparkly watch fob and spectacle chain. I love how his saddle feathers drape over his folded "arm".

I wanted the bull to look sharp and snappy for obvious reasons that he is the "ruler" of the farm. There is a reason that every farmer tells you not to "mess with the bull." The problem I've run into is that other than his spats, your can't really tell he has on period clothing. There is not enough room on my block for a fedora. This brings me to the conclusion that they must've gotten it spot on in the twenties if a snappy men's suit hasn't changed much since then! I'm curious to see how it will turn out because I want his suit to be a dark pin stripe with a white tie. It will be an Angus (black) bull so I hope the image won't turn out too dark. I'm not that worried.

There was a lot of unconscious imagery going on in the broodie hen image. Halfway through drawing it I realized that I was referencing my grandmother for the imagery. As a good southern family, we went to church every Sunday when I was growing up and my sister and I had to ALWAYS wear a slip or petticoat. Kids don't care about their appearance and my grandmother or mother was always tugging at our skirts hissing "Your petticoat is showing!" In her later years, we always teased our grandmother about that when her skirt was accidentally hitched up. I hated those damn things. Anyway, there were three of us kids and she was always scolding and clucking after us like a broodie hen.....a smoking, swearing broodie hen. Ah, the south! A petticoat under the hen's scalloped dress would have been too repetitious so I dressed her up in pantaloons. Believe it or not, some people still wore those things in the 80's. Not my grandma. Those are definitely her legs though because she always wore shoes like that.

Lastly, I cracked up the whole time I was drawing this one. Surprisingly, it was hard to find good swine images through Google Images. I was looking for the old fashioned images you used to find of hogs with folds in their faces and their ears flopping over. Mostly what I was finding were images of industry standard pigs. I didn't realize that different breeds were bred for certain things like bacon vs. ham. All you vegetarians out there cover your ears. People don't realize the danger of picking only one breed of animal to provide the world's meat and risking inbreeding and genetic degeneration. I'll go off on that tangent later. Not only was their a lack of diversity but there were also images mixed in under titles that were not what I was looking for. "Fat hog face" search brought up more images of human women than pigs.....anyways. I scraped a few (two) images off the internet and went on memory. An interesting thing I found out in making my fat hog look more piggish is that I didn't realize that the animal had such an upturned jaw. This got more pronounced as it gained weight and shoved folds of fat onto its face. The belly with the cinched pants button was not hard to draw. You see a lot of that in America and I admit I've been there myself. My big old fatty-fat piggy was hilarious to draw!
I can't wait to do more!