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

 

Stone Lithography!

Diving head-long into stone litho, and loving it! There are so many awesome resources on-line for lithography that combined with The Complete Printmaker (totally worth the $30 if you're even remotely interested in printmaking), I feel like I'm really learning a lot about all the possibilities of this process! It's funny, my faculty advisor for my thesis was trying to find a description of chine colle on-line for me today, and found a You Tube video. She looked at me and joked, "Why do we even go to schools anymore?" (By the way, chine colle is TOTALLY getting worked into my monotype work!)

Last year, another professor had sent me this excellent blog entry when I had a litho experiment go not-quite my way. A week or so ago, I found this video, also on You Tube on how to transfer photo copies onto litho stones.

I am just loving so much the versatility of this process. It's been another crazy productive week, and I've started working into some prints, stitching things together and taking the good ol' watercolors to others.

 

Busy week!

What a week in the studio! I put in double time since my Wednesday night class was cancelled, leaving me with a marathon 13 hr day! I also spent some time prepping for stone litho, and I have some links to share tomorrow for the different techniques I'll be trying. All in all, this was an extremely productive week.

Studio time: 20 hrs.
Research: 3 hrs.

Sometimes Monday Means Wednesday

Of course as soon as I set a schedule for myself, I do something silly, like leave my camera at home two days in a row!

But I'm not completely helpless. So here goes a photo litho (I think that's the official arty name for the process I've been using the last couple weeks) photo dump! A selection of prints in chronological order:

Photo litho test #1- Victorian death portrait...it was pretty clear to me from this first one that careful inking is key to this method.

 

Photo litho test #2 - Victorian death portrait

Victorian family portrait w/ dead child - This was the first time I pull multiples. As I suspected, like monotypes, each print got lighter. I love the effect.

My daughter, Rhiannon, at 2 years old (she's now 4.5)

My son, Dylan, at about 12-18 months (he's now 7.5)

Fairly recent picture of me...I took it a month or so ago to show off my new nose ring.

Photocopied from my sketchbook, from an open figure drawing session.

 This print method has been so eye opening, I'm hesitant to leave it already. But, I'm not really leaving it, since it's making quite an appearance in my BFA show and I've been given permission from my photo professor to print my images like this for Digital Photography.

Next up for me is traditional stone lithography. There's a stone I started doodling on last semester; I think I'm first going to finish that drawing to work through the stone etching process. From there, this weekend will likely be spent largely on figuring out the specifics of the books I want to produce for my semester's work.

 

I make things up and call it 'art.'

Title taken from this hilarious artist statement video that I will never tire of watching.

It is relevant though! After more copier-litho experimentation and bus-induced deep reflection, I believe I have figured out a sort of thesis for my printmaking semester, which pulls in all the methods I'll be using, including book-making.

The women on my mom's side of my family are like history hoarders. There are literally trunks and boxes filled with pictures, letters, official documents, artwork, garments, dating back to the early 1800s. And all while I was growing up, my gramma and great-gramma were always telling me everyone's stories. They both had/have this insane amount of family history committed to memory, but really intimate stuff, stuff that probably wouldn't be interesting or funny to most people outside our family. And especially when my great-gramma's Alzheimer's got really bad the last 10 years or so of her life, she would just tell me any memory she could conjure up as it floated to the surface, lots of stuff she remembered being told by her mother and grandmother (the former born about 1896, the latter in the 1860s or 70s).
Basically, I've spent my whole life immersed in intimate, day-to-day, seemingly unimportant history, much of it from around the time of the photos I've been using as references. I don't know why dead children specifically, other than I've been fascinated with death since I was very, very young and that most pictures of women with their children that I can find, the kids are dead in. But I know I'm always crazy curious about the lives of the people in the photos, and I think it stems from my upbringing. I think the reason why I like using them in conjunction with print, is that with multiples of a base reproduction, I can explore different possibilities about what their stories were.

That's originally from an email sent to another professor, attempting to figure out why I find myself drawn to Victorian death portraits as source and reference material. 

This is my goal for the semester: To combine my narrative inclinations, my obsession for death portraits, and my deep love of history into a series of books. I'm not sure quite how many yet; I suppose the narratives I create will dictate that. 

In terms of blog posting, I've created and Monday and Saturday schedule for myself. Monday postings will always occur in the morning and probably include pictures occasionally; Saturday whenever I get to a wifi hot spot and will include pictures of the week's work. My tally of hours spent working and researching every week will include hours spent from Sat. night/Sun. morning to the following Sat. morning.

Studio hours: 14
Research hours: 2
Total for 1/26 - 2/02: 16

Diggin' Deep

Dear Rebecca Tiedt (her blog isn't terribly current, but still an interesting read on new media aids in K-12 education), I could kiss you. She is the creator of the "Lithography: Printing Without a Stone or Press" slide show I also shared last blog post. I feel like the clouds have parted and ethereal beings are singing.

I had a suspicion I would love lithography. I have been told by other professors that I would love lithography. During my bare-bones experiments in the last year, I've found stone lithography to be immensely gratifying. Not to mention griding down stones is wonderful meditation. However, this photocopier-gum arabic-litho method has stolen my heart.

It's not without its hitches of course. I'm finding it a little bit tricky to get the water saturated just enough, but not too much. It could partly be materials; Tiedt's slide show says to use sponges, I've been using paper towels. A professor of mine has also suggested that the gum arabic-to-water ratio can affect the results. So there's more tinkering to do. So far, though, I'm very happy with this process and how it's going.

Conceptually, my work has focused on reproductive issues the last 4 years or so, largely influenced by my activism. Specifically, I'm focusing more on motherhood issues and maternal mental illness this past year, but I've always been passionately pro-choice. It was through pro-choice activism that I became acquainted with Michelle Kinsey Bruns, and later met her in person when she co-chaired an event I had a painting in. Michelle always has very intelligent and thoughtful things to say, but this article she has up on Feministing today really struck me. I've been diving more into the power of narratives in art to create societal change in my own work, but I've been a little timid when it comes to using my own narrative in my work. Producing art work and putting it in the public sphere is already such a vulnerable thing - how much more so when you scrub yourself raw and put your personal struggles in there too?

I've been feeling lately, though, that I have to go there. Especially for my thesis show. Michelle's article today, the courage she had to stand up on that train and then to also put it out online gives me courage too. These are the stories we need to share and get out there, as artists, as activists, and as people if we ever want to change anything.

New year, new experiments!

Welcome to Searching for Prints Charming! This is my documentation of my ongoing experiments with printmaking, bookmaking, and related mixed media techniques for advanced printmaking course in the 2013 Spring semester.

I am currently an artist and studio art senior at Cazenovia College in Cazenovia, New York. A long time resident of Central NY, I have two degrees from Onondaga Community College and will be receiving my B.F.A. from Caz this May. My full resume is available at my website.

I find most of my work is influenced by background as an activist and being a mother. I am currently engaged in research, compiled in part for my thesis, into the ability of art to help better society through political activism. I strongly believe that every artist has a moral requirement to use their work to help other people.

My media choice tends to fluctuate depending on the needs of the concept. Painting and printmaking, however, are my mutual first loves. The majority of my print background has been self-taught through good old-fashioned experimenting in the studio. This is a trend I intend to continue this semester, in an effort to further my technical abilities in various print techniques. To this end, my main focus will be in different lithography, monotype, and etching techniques. I also plan to experiment with different papers not traditionally used for printmaking and non-traditional presentation. As a result, I will be splitting my semester up into thirds.

Weeks 1 - 5 (January 23 - February 22) I will be focusing on lithography. Specifically, I will be working on traditional stone and copier lithography. I have heard of different methods of using a copy machine previously, but have had my interest piqued by this excellent tutorial uploaded onto Slide Share. http://www.slideshare.net/rebeccasue/lithographygray When I saw this, it made my little zinester heart happy.

Weeks 6 - 10 (February 25 - March 29) I want to shift my focus towards monotypes. I first fell in love with this print technique and its wide range of possibilities a few months ago, and it has been a main focus of my work. I am especially interested in its limited edition possibilities. Most people consider monotype to always be an edition of 1, but by balancing the amount of ink and wetness of the paper, I have been able to pull lighter, "ghost" images from the same plate. While working with monotypes, I would also like to reacquaint myself with different book binding techniques.

Weeks 11 - 15 (April 1 - May 3) For the end of my semester, I want to experiment with different methods of creating colored etchings; various ink methods, using multiple plates or ink viscosity methods as well as mixed media methods.

To the end of these goals, I spent 2.5 hours in the studio staining paper for lithographs and another 3 sketching at home. My plans for this weekend are to have a few images prepared to start having some photocopier fun Monday morning.