End of Year Evaluation: Gravure

It is a lazy Sunday and there is a noisy summer storm in progress.  I have the summer off from the printmaking class and I am in the process of looking through what I have produced...  seeing what was successful and what was not.

   Examining the finished work,  I can see that there is room for improvement and some prints I will try again.      Too bad archival paper is costly....as it is difficult for me to actually put prints in the "poubelle".   However,  if I were doing an edition for sale , many prints would most certainly end up as trash.  

The biggest problem I seem to have in my current classroom situation is "impatience".     The large press in the studio at school is coveted by all the students as it takes large paper (preferred for exhibition) and is more accurate for lino prints than the book press we have at our disposal.  But though the large press prints both metal and lino, the instructor is reluctant to re-regulate it for each new class every three hours.

To print linoleum blocks on the large press,  it is required that one  take away the blankets and substitute runners the height of standard linoleum.  The instructor must also change the tension on the press.  Since she is the only one allowed to make these adjustments, it is up to her if we get to print our preferred plaque at class each Wednesday.

  I think when she puts on the "green light" for us "lino" students to use the large press....I get excited to do as many as possible.

Lesson number one:   Slow down and concentrate on each print each step of the way. ...  better to do just one then have to throw some away.

I have a single two toned print to show you today.    This is taken from a gouache painting I did years back and I intended to make it into a linoleum reduction print.   However, I found that the size of "lino" I had chosen to work with this year was too small for the number of details required and the number of colors I wanted.

Painting by Mary M Payne

 I have carved the painting as a simple lino and printed it below in a two tone print about the size of standard French A4 paper.  The coral color oil based ink went on and dried for a week before I put over the black layer.

 It is also difficult to roll out two colors at school as we have a very small glass area that everyone shares.    Otherwise I would have tried "wet on wet" which means printing the black immediately after the background.

 I reversed the print on this design as I didn't feel that was critical to the result.   I have experimented with several new techniques this year.  This one reminds me of a silhouette ...as done by paper cut artists like Kara Walker.   http://learn.walkerart.org/karawalker

Linocut engraving by Mary M Payne

Chine Collé : Bike

Chine Collé with Michelin Guide: Mary Payne

 As I have explained in an earlier post,  Chine collé is a technique in which one can affix a piece of paper ( usually colorfast Japanese tissue paper)  under a print so that it becomes the background as the print is laid down. 

Being in France, old Michelin guides are easy to come by so I cut up a piece of the map and glued it with traditional glue starch to make this print. My plate had already been prepared as an aquatint of a bike and shadow inked in black. 

Just the printing process required that I:

1.  Wet the paper and the map thoroughly and set it between two sheets of old newsprint to soak for 10 minutes. 

2.  Inked my copper "plaque" with oil based black, wiped it with three different pieces of tarlatan and hand wiped the plate and set it aside. 

3.  Soaked the BFK Rives receiving paper for about 10 minutes,  dried it with a towel on both sides until it was damp.

4.  Spread glue with a brush... onto the damp paper surpassing the area of the print.  

5.  Removed the damp piece of map and placed it face down on top of the inked copper plate. 

6.  Centered the plate on the press and then measured off the amount of margin I wanted on each side in order to center the paper. 

7.  Dropped the paper on top of the plate (and map piece) and placed the blankets ("linge")over the whole. 

8.  Turned the crank on the press to run the plate through the press. 

9.  Slowly peeled back the paper (in case the glue was not adhering to the paper) and pulled off the print. 

The second time I tried the traditional paper which  is finer than traditional tissue paper to be used under the inked plate.  This time I spattered it with ink before using it.  Next time I will use a wash of acrylic instead of ink because that will not mix with the glue.  I was being absent minded again when I grabbed for the ink.   Also I needed to dry the finished print between two sheets of blotter paper under a pile of books for at least a week.  I didn't do that either and so I have a ripple in the middle.  I will have to rewet it and try again.  Print making teaches Buddhist "mindfulness" if you stay at it long enough. 

Chine collé : Mary Payne

Rock Balance - POV Counterbalance Demonstration by Michael Grab (Gravity...

I've decided to show you this least viewed of Michael Grab's video's to drive you crazy .  No actually I didn't watch the others because this one tested my impatience to the "max".   

I am awed by this kind of single focus.  I think for that reason alone, Michael Grab is to be admired whether you want to call it art or not.  

Michael Grab: Balance, Art, Meditation

Photo by Michael Grab: Gravity Glue.com

Photo by Michael Grab: Gravity Glue.com

Photo by Michael Grab: Gravity Glue.com

Looking at the work of Michael Grab, I am confronted again with the question of why do artists do what they do, how do they find their art form or does it find them?  

Michael Grab makes temporal art by creating finely balanced structures of rocks that seem to go against all laws of physics.  More than most art forms, these impossible looking structures require intense concentration and meditative focus, steady hands and calm breath . 

Grab might spend many minutes in freezing water making tiny adjustments to find a rock's center of gravity, a therapeutic ritual that he developed in 2008.  

Since then his simple curiosity about what rocks could do has evolved into a passion and daily meditative practice with his "material". 

 He realizes that seeing the photos or results of his efforts has a unique effect on the viewer, himself included....giving a sense of peace and miracle, a sense that anything is possible. 

He says on his blog:

 Gravity Glue:  http://www.gravityglue.com/

that he wants to highlight the idea that "We are creators of our own reality, rather than mere recipients."

If an artist needs a reason to continue his work,   I think that Grab has a profound one.  Blessings on you,  Michael Grab.  Your stuff is cool.  

End of year wishes

In France, we don't send Christmas cards but instead we send good wishes for the beginning of each new year: "Meilleur Voeux"  So my attempt at celebrating both Christmas and the beginning of a new year took the form of this linocut that I dashed off the last day before my printmaking class ended for the holidays.    

 I don't always have access to a press even in class ( it is regulated differently each week), so I have so far only produced a few of these.... not enough to send one to each of my friends.   

It actually looks better with some paper around it so it isn't really a card, either.  And what is one going to do with a seasonal art work that is too big as a card but not quite right on the wall all year either?  It's an oddity that only a few will want, I imagine.   

But in the blog I can offer it to you with wishes for a thrilling start to a new year.   I hope your year is full of freshness, things that challenge you in a good way..... and so make you happy. 

Still life

 I was thinking about what my friend G said yesterday about my post.  It's true that my beginning paintings could be considered "still lives"..... a still life being a drawing or painting of an arrangement of objects.

I am still working on this one, it isn't as bright as this photo , I need to re-work the background color.  I am not sure I like it.

  I have always been fascinated by the arrangement of objects.  There are so many combinations and textures to play with.  And aside from flowers or fruit that ripens or fades,  you can leave the objects in place for a long time to come back to during the week.  As long as you don't have a cat, that is.   My methodical side likes this idea of painting one subject over many days.


   In French "still life" painting is known as "nature morte" or literally: "dead nature".
Since still life paintings traditionally were done of fruit , flowers, shells, and rocks...I suppose the name came from the fact that all of these elements …..well,  were not alive.   Or maybe the French name had to do with the myriad paintings with dead game in them that were popular in the Flemish baroque period. 

Kimberly Witham,  the taxidermist/artist came up with images of "road kill" along with fruit and fancy plates etc …. no different in content really from Flemish art depicting freshly killed rabbits, lobsters, or wild ducks lying stretched out with tankards, fruit and flowers.  
Take a look at Kimberly's imaginative work.   
 http://kimberlywitham.com/kimberly_witham/Kimberly_Witham.
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    As for my own attempts of "still life" over the years…they vary from traditional to abstract. The paintings below all count as "still lives".   Maybe I will get back to this genre one of these days.  

This one is almost an abstract.  Painted on raw canvas treated with rabbit skin glue. 

Can't seem to crop this one.  This is in a collection in Seattle.

Sold

Two tone, two plate lino cut print

I used all my dishes whose shapes I liked and made them into a unified color range for this stylized still life. 

Knife painting took about 10 minutes to paint

This one is a nod to  Cezanne

First attempts at painting

When I first started doing my own art   (instead of reproductions), I was very unsure of what that would be and whether I would be able to deliver what was on my mind.   

 I have always been drawn to intimate interior scenes and still life.  So some of my first paintings were of interiors in watercolors.   

This and the little painting to follow are of a corner of my living room in Nice.  At least the balustrade is really there but the pieces of furniture were actually a table and a book shelf in the corner.  I changed the table into a desk in the first drawing and then a blue table in the second.    I imagined the bouquet, the book, the drawers etc. 

After all one can paint whatever one wants whether it's there are not.  In fact an artist has to edit..... to get a good composition.  And therein lies the first creative step.

 At the time of this painting, I was reading a book by Natalie Goldberg the author of the writer's manual called Writing Down the Bones.    Being a fan, I had bought her book called In Living Color as well. 

 Even though Goldberg didn't think of herself as an artist at the time, she started on a trip with a pen and watercolors.  In Living Color  she shows some fanciful illustrations of places she has lived and scenes from her travels .  Her naive style is an authentic voice and I am sure my second painting was influenced by her expressive images and quirky style.

Natalie Goldberg paintings

After I did the first composition, I started to breathe easier.   This was freedom and whatever I painted was going to be a surprise.   

   So for the next picture of the same corner,   I realized, hey.... I want a blue table and a window and balustrade that are acting out and dancing away.  Why not?