I Don't Always Doodle During Artist Presentations, But When I Do, It's Dead People.

 

Cleaned up from my original sketch, and all readying to be monotyped and lithographed. My drawing background has, until recently, been very tight and etching-like; quite probably why I became a printmaker in the first place. But over the last year I've been experimenting with this looser kind of mark-making and since a new image from the Thanatos Archive was fresh in my head, this is what came out.

On a slightly related note, does attending an artist's presentation/demo give anyone else the itch to sketch? It's like I can't help it, even if the artist is totally engaging, like Hannah Bertram was Monday night, I have to doodle or sketch while they're talking and demoing. It's like I absorb their creative energy through osmosis.

Hannah Bertram, by the way. HOLY AWESOME. She kept comparing her dust installation work to print, and it totally is. Super inspiring, and she was so open to helping and giving advice to those of us about to strike out into our own 'real world' practices. Must be the teacher in her, but still really appreciated.

I KNEW No One Would Using Water-Based Ink Willingly

Like many other art seniors around the country, I spent my spring break working my butt off. Mostly on my upcoming senior exhibition, but I did spare a few hours for printmaking.

Being without a partner to hit the campus studio with (stupid after-hours rules), I decided to try out that gelatin printing I was so intrigued with. 

Now, my major question in regards to gelatin printing was why they were using sub-standard (read: water-based) inks. I'm a pretty hardcore oils girl. So many it was just my inner ink snob coming out. My complete lack of forethought. Because water a oil are not friends! So a water-based gelatin plate will completely reject oil ink. Since I already had my brayer loaded up, I just printed by hand from my plate of plexi.

Given my loathing of water-based ink, it really didn't surprise me to discover I had none. However, I do have a ton of acrylic paint! I knew from previous experience that it wouldn't roll out well; the viscosity just isn't right. As I expected, I had lines in my 'ink' from my brayer. My attempt to smooth them out with my fingers lead to some interesting texture though.
 

The actual printing was nice. I really only needed light-to-moderate hand pressure to get a gorgeous print. And once I printed the texture, there was little enough paint left on my brayer to roll out half-way decently. There are still lines in the paint from the brayer, but they are far less noticeable.

I especially like the ghost print of the woman. The way the paint halo-ed the paper cutout is intriguing. This technique is definitely worth another try with proper ink.

One clean up note. Remember how gelatin is water-based? Yeah, don't clean up with hot water. At least not in the sink. Or you'll lose a chunk of your damn plate. Which in retrospect, I might play with next time too.
 

Family Narratives

Trying to settle on what some completed pieces for this course are going to look like, I just keep coming back to Victorian portraiture and narratives.

I was raised almost exclusively by the women in my family. My family is kind of traditional in the way most families that start childbearing young are; it was easier for the men to find well-enough paying jobs without an advanced education, so they worked while the women stayed home with the kids (when I graduate in May, I'll be the first person in my immediate and not-too-distant family to have a bachelor's degree; my cousin beat me to an associate's degree, and since I received mine, both our mothers have gotten one each).

It was their choice though. The women in my family have almost without exception been very maternal, and extremely creatively driven. Staying home with the kids when we were young and then only working part time when we were school age allowed them to come together, create, and be happy. It was really quite lovely. 

There have always been photographs, drawings, and stories about past generations at every family gathering. My grandmother has a curio cabinet that looks like it could have walked straight out the 1850's, save for more modern pictures of me, my sister, my kids, and my cousins. I believe this is where my draw to Victorian photography comes from. 

With all that said, my inspiration this weekend has been some family photos I'm rediscovering.

 

Mind = Blown

Ok, ignore the hookey music:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/Dy0JG-TEWf8

[Ed: Linked, since the embed code wasn't working] Can we talk about this please?!

This artist, Linda Germain, has a ton of videos on her YouTube Channel, linked also on her blog, Printmaking Without a Press illustrating how to do a gelatin monotype print.

Not to be confused with gelatin printed photographs, gelatin printing involves making a "plate" of gelatin to use as your matrix. It seems like most people who use this method (see the additional links posted below) use it as a totally non-toxic print method. While I'm all for non-toxic, I've yet to meet a water- or soy-based ink that produces same results I love oh-so much about oil. It also seems that most people who use this method take a found object approach to monoprinting. Which is nice. I guess. If you're into that kind of kitschy, decorative thing. I see no reason though why a rag/q-tip wipe drawing method wouldn't work. Drawing on the inked plate with a blunt etching needle or pencil would pose a problem to the longevity of the gelatin - could produce some cool effects though!

My only hesitation is that I love me some ghost images; at least with water-based inks, it appears a gelatin plate leaves none behind. What Germain terms a 'ghost image' is actually a negative image left behind by the forms she uses to block out ink. Some of the things I've been cutting out of other prints could be cool to create mask positives and negatives. And depending on how to oil ink sticks to the gelatin, I may still get ghost images out of a gelatin plate.

Anyway it works out, I think it'll be a fascinating experiment during Spring Break when I'll be limited to my home press; which thanks to a phone upgrade, I should be able to update on the experiment during that week! For next week, however, I plan to stick to my plexi-plate method.

Additional gelatin plate links:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/gelatinprintmaking/pool/with/8479685878/#photo_8479685878
http://www.comfortableshoesstudio.com/2011/05/technique-tuesday-gelatin-prints.html
http://4alchemists.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/hello-world/
http://www.marylandprintmakers.org/newsletter.asp?id=230
http://www.gelliarts.com/ - Apparently this is popular enough, there's a company that makes reuseable gelatin-like plates.

This week's studio hours: 12
This week's research hours: 4

Usually, a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

...but since these are crappy cell phone pictures of an in-progress work, we'll say they're each really worth like 25 words each.

So I did not know until today that Victorian pornography was a thing. I love it. The 1800's, and thus public domain (my crack legal team consisting of my senior thesis advisor has informed me, after there was some question with my work in the past [ha!] that photographs prior to 1924 are public domain) reference for this particular monotype showed up in a Google image search from a Tumblr account. I've linked the Tumblr page with just this image - the main account is so completely not safe for work. Unless you work for a website that archives Victorian porn! Which I'm now faced with the decision of whether or not to buy a membership in the name of art. I've already purchased a year membership to the Thanatos Archive - this awesome post-mortem and mourning photo archive. Oh the things we need to purchase in the name of art!

Ain't No Party Like a Litho Party, 'Cause a Litho Party Don't Stop!

I began this semester starting with lithography because I thought it would be this enormous process that would take me forever to learn and perfect; and to a degree that's still not an incorrect statement. However, in the past 5 weeks, I have found so many variations on lithography and have opened up so many possibilities that I really wish I'd officially given myself more time!

While it's technically time to move on to monotypes, this isn't the end of lithography for me. There are just too many possibilities still, so many different ways to integrate it into other print mediums.

With that said, I've started collaging some of my prints together, with a dabble in chine colle and alternative printing papers.

 I'm a little torn on how I want to complete my projects for this term. I'm still really in love with the idea of putting together a book, but in my quest for alternative methods of presentation, I discovered Jane Hammond's lithographs. I love the idea of bringing the sculptural into print - they're already so related, just in the action of etching a plate or carving a block. Sculpture's not totally my field, but I do get three dimensional impulses from time to time. In a digital photo class, I'm experimenting with printing on plaster, so that it can be carved and painted back into, and there's a sculptural feel in making the work with the stitching I've been doing; so it might pop up soon!

Last week's studio hours: 12
Last week's research hours: 3

Illness =/= Art

Came down with a cold that wanted so badly to be flu (or possibly just a minor flu) Wednesday that wiped me out until this morning. I did a bit of working back into some prints while in bed, but it's really hard to balance water for watercolors on a mattress (in case you were wondering). I didn't get a chance to open my stones yet - first thing Monday!

Studio hrs: 10

Research hrs: 3