Recent Works On Paper. With Paper. Whatever.

Various permutations of block printing and embossing. The embossing made my brain tingle a little more than the printing, but where they are combined, that was pretty sweet, too. Not as easy to see in these photos, which were made with a telephone.

A heap of attempts. Some were more rewarding than others. It is difficult to tell if the ink is dorked, it was just too hot in the studio, or I don't know what I am doing. Or, you know, All of the Above.

These are cool enough, I figure they deserve large size! The two images were made from the same embossing plate, but the 2nd one had more carving done to it before going through the press. 

The purple is the same plate, block printed. I think this was one of the first prints I pulled with block printing ink. I tried intalio first to see if I liked it (yeah, yeah, I *know* that is not correct usage!) and I did like it, but the photos of those prints are pretty much impossible to decipher. 

Finally Admitting to 2013

Maybe I was just really disappointed that the world did not end back in December? Maybe I just Have A Problem with winter? Probably we will never know why there has been no blogging for three months, although most likely the fact that I find the term 'blogging' fairly distasteful, something I am supposed to do when I am not feeling well.

Oh, jeeze, I think I'm gonna blog..!

ANYWAY, there are a few haps happening.

Exhibit 1A: A Silly Afghan

This is a work in progress, and although I expect it to become considerably larger, it is unlikely that it will get any less silly. Probably more so, if I had to guess.

Exhibits 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D: These Flowers

Regular Kind Watercolor

Watercolor Pencils

Still Life of Cut Flowers And Fruit Which Keeps Getting Eaten

Sketched with 4B .05mm mechanical pencil. Ask me about my Kuru Toga!

 I decided to work more on my life drawing skills, and last week picked up a cheap model at the hippie grocery store. (The flowers, I mean, what were YOU thinking??) I also have gotten much better about taking my sketchbook with me and sketching people and things and places when I am out in the world with a few minutes to spare. I often get busted drawing people, especially in restaurants, because I am the type to look at the subject a lot and the paper very little. Eventually I'll share some of my public sketching practice, but the pictures are all you get for now.

I also joined a newly formed Urban Sketchers group here in town. I have only made it to one of their meetings so far, but I think I will get to more of them as the weather for hanging around outside becomes more enticing. In two weeks, we're planning to meet up at the central transit center in town, should be interesting.

Also working on getting studio space in order in the garage. I think I'll need to start with electricity and insulation, and then ventilation, and then furniture. Currently I am using some large cardboard boxes as a make-shift workbench, and running an extension cord from the laundry room whenever I need juice. Of course, working in the garage is another thing that becomes more interesting as the weather improves, because that space is not heated. Signed up for some studio hours at the university metal studio, but have done very little there, so far. Ideas are pouring out my ears, but my time and their availability hasn't lined up so well, so far. I think that will change this week.

Enh, what else is going on?

Went to a lovely show at the Albuquerque Museum, Deco Japan. The link I'm giving is for someone else's exhibition of this show, which is a traveling exhibit. It maybe will come to you, unless it already came past you. If you're a big fan of deco style graphics and prints, the show has a tremendous collection of magazine covers, matchbook covers, songbook covers, posters, and adverts. If you're more into the functional and 3D stuff, they had some fairly nifty containers, screens, kimonos, and smallish sculptures. My personal favorites were the flying fish themed items. A quick image search on 'deco japan' will get you a pretty solid idea of what's out there.

Did a wee bit of gallery-crawling this past week. Revisited my fixation on Travis Black's watercolor images of birds. Was gifted a lovely print of one of the hummingbird images by someone awesome. (Squee!!) Failed to get into the local artist quonset hut, but I will. Now that I know they close at 3pm. (Who does that??) Tripped over work by printer / painter Diana Stetson, who has some extremely harmonious work. Definitely nature-oriented, but it is actually the compositions and executions which are harmonious to me. There were plenty of other interesting works to see in the world, and Mariposa Gallery in Nob Hill had quite a few. In addition to Diana Stetson and some other intriguing artists, Mariposa also currently has an exhibit hanging from Amanda Banker, who seems to have a bit of a fixation with animal-headed portrait figures. That show is worth it if only for the smoking-jacket three quarter posed octopus headed portrait. (Which does not appear on her website, by the way, so if you want to see it, you need to go there and see it!)

Is that all? Well, it has to be enough for now, I suppose. There will be more posts on all these topics, I suspect. Probably the next exciting thing is going to be a mechanical pencil review. If that doesn't strike you as exciting, this probably isn't the blog for you.

Neato Graphic Artist!

Although I picked something else to preview for you here, I found this guy's portrait work to be awefully intense. I love it. I'm not a big fan of portraiture, but in this case, I'll allow it.
More drawings... on the Behance Network

back in the saddle

I have a provisional goal of doing one small project every day. I accept that this won't happen every day, but it's nice to get to the end of a day and have a Finished Thing to show for it. This is today's Thing -- a bookmark. This is made from copper, and not super-high-polish finished. It's a relatively crude prototype for the next project of the day. Tomorrow, I'll probably go in copper again. Eventually, when I'm happy with the prototypes, I'll move on to silver.

If you're interested to see some COOL metal bookmarks, try here.

Old Dog / New Tricks

Took a two evening advanced course in acrylic abstract painting, with emphasis on landscape rendering. I went with a water theme, probably because I'd been listening to The Odyssey audio book all afternoon...

Although that style of painting does not especially interest me, the techniques presented did, and the instructor did a fine job of explaining them.

My canvas was, sadly, too small to try them all out at once, as most of them rely on allowing thin layers of paint dry between applications. Obviously this is tough with a small canvas! You can only get so far away from what you've just painted. Everyone else in the class was working with one or more canvasses in the 2'x3' size range, for the most part.

Here is the canvas I painted during class. Currently I have a couple of watercolors in progress, but when I have finished those, I am going to start some acrylic paintings. It seems that having a couple of canvasses going simultaneously is the cure for waiting, and I love trying new stuff. I did come out of the classes feeling pretty inspired to try these techniques, and full of ideas about how to put them to good use.

I admit it was hard not to giggle when several of the other course participants extended sincere sympathy to me, as an apparently obvious total beginner to painting. I took the small canvas (about a foot square) because I've not been feeling well lately, and didn't have a lot of energy for a large painting -- and I *hate* unfinished paintings. Also, carrying it to class and back home in the freezing damn cold on foot kinda sucks. $5 says everyone else in the class came in a car. Since I'd been doing watercolors during the day both days, I ended up painting the acrylic left-handed to give my right a break. Didn't really get into any of that with the other people in the class, though. I was just happy to be there.

There is a summer course, 3 days somewhere north of here, that I will probably sign up for, if I can work out transportation, and get registered before all the spots fill. It does look like fun.

Urban Sketching

I recently came across the Urban Sketchers blog, and have been inspired to haul my sketch book around town. Normally when I see a crapload of really amazing drawings and paintings that people have the nerve to refer to as "sketches", I retreat, feeling intimidated. For some reason this site fires me up about putting marks on the page. Today I sat on a cold cement bench in front of the Schwalbennest coffee shop and made a crude sketch of it for a while, 40 minutes maybe? My fun was cut short when a delivery truck rudely pulled up right in front of me. Bugger managed to block my line of site, the bike lane, AND was parked square in front of the no-parking sign. Dude was on a roll.

Anyway, I decided that it was fun, even if the sketch isn't amazing like a lot of what's on the Urban Sketchers site. I also decided that color is pretty important to these sketches. Since even a really basic watercolor kit is more crap than I want to juggle when I go out in the world, I decided to try taking the watercolor pencils with me. That should allow me to rough in the color, work dry (makes for quick get-aways!), and not worry about spilling stuff, etc. The ability to slap the notebook shut and cheese it is important to me.

Eventually I'll start posting some of these things here. Promise. The problem isn't that I hate it or anything like that, it's more that I'm too lazy to deal with the camera and the uploading and all that. Also, I'm really focused on a textile project right now, and I'd rather put the time into that instead.

And so I am. And yes, there will be pictures of that project, too! Until then, I highly recommend you hustle over to Urban Sketchers and dig the awesomeness. I've added a link to it from here in the link list on the right, so you can get to it any time you get the urge. It's that cool.

Still Not Dead

Also, still not finished with that project. Today might be the day, though. I think it's just down to fixing in those last 8 pieces of glass. You know, the ones that don't fit anymore? because the wood changed size due to moisture content, or paint, or whatever? Yeah. Those. Anyway. That.

So.

While I'm all busy cursing about that, I'll leave you with this. In Vienna, Austria last week, there was lots of art-boggling, and a purchase was made of a fine art print from Michael Ferner. This is my second M. Ferner print, the first being the two koi print from back in January.

I am now going to point you to his web site. If you do nothing else, simply reload his front page over and over, because the images there are gorgeous. The dragons, the bamboo, the seahorses, the owl. These are some of my favorites.


This is a tiny image (from his site) of the print we bought in Wien last week. Never bought a print with a pedigree before! The print itself is largish, for us, anyway, 70cm X 150cm. It's going to look very, very cool hanging in our Laubengang, which is a long hallway thing, paneled entirely in wood, with windows and doors along both sides.

Art, versus something I could do and get paid for.

Last week, it occurred to me that I could probably make some money by going to the fleamarkt on a Saturday morning, picking out some little prizes, and assembling them (on the spot), and (hopefully) selling them by the end of the day. At the fleamarkt. Somewhere in the intersection of crafting, performance art, recycling, and yard sale. Also, and perhaps most importantly, it could be quite fun. The fleamarkt is basically a pre-sorted landfill, so any and every random thing I could need or want to put into a project would be there. Lamp parts, coffee pots, thermos bottles, LPs. I am very fond of this idea. The only real downside I see here is that it is juuuuuust over my introvert / extrovert threshold. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try it once and see if I can survive it.

Ideally, I wouldn't actually go there with a plan for a finished item, just see what's there and come up with a concept on the spot. However, for a first run, I imagine a basic plan might be a really good idea, so I'll at least know what tools to take, and what to budget for materials.

Things I already know I'll need:

• camera (for documentation)
• something to sit on (there is a little drinking area there, that might suffice)
• a wide brimmed hat (there is no shade)
• some money to buy base materials
• some courage to talk to strangers about what I'm doing / trying to sell
• a basic tool kit (a way to cut things apart, a way to join things together, a way to clean up rough edges, a way to clean up dirty bits, a few spare parts, and whatever else seems like a good idea)
• ... other? A bag lunch. 'cause if no one is going with me, I can't just walk away from my project to get lunch, I guess.

Does this idea sound interesting at all? The Mr. wasn't really into it, but he's not really a Maker.

new toy!

I tried a smallish, probably too-complicated design with my shiny new pack of Pentel Fabric Fun wax dye sticks. It's like a pastel that can be used on fabric, and set into the fiber with a hot iron.

Predictably, they are inclined to be a little muddy in application, especially as they are *very* soft, and can't hold a point at all. So... any amount of precision I want has to be attainable with a tip the size of a pencil eraser. On the other hand, it sets REALLY fast, almost unbelievably fast, and does not bleed at all. And blending is pretty easy.

I tried to make transfers a couple of different ways, but it seems to resist that very capably. I suspect it sort of collapses on itself when it gets heated, so instead of transferring, I just ended up with a few little pills of color and a largely-unmarked cloth. Ahh, well. Will be working with shielding when I am ready to try again. Probably need to put the colors first and the black on top, which is the opposite of how I normally work.

12 meters/€20

I stumbled into the clearance room at Ikea and found a bin full of fabric ends and pieces. Off-cuts, samples, etc. In all probability, had the prices been half what they were, I'd have ended up with twice as much fabric. These are the prizes, and I already have plans for a lot of it, but there is something about a bunch of random fabrics that just makes me want to Make Stuff.