Collage Party

Posted on by under sketch book

Last week, my art group went to Paula’s house and worked on a layered collage. We used a variety of papers, thin fabrics and painted fusible. Then each layer could be printed, painted, or more layers added. Paula had all the stuff ready to go and we each created a very different collage.

This one is mine. The white “writing” was done by Paula. Her specialty, “Goddess writing”.

This one is Louise’s.

This one is Paula’s.

And here is Sally’s. Deb had to leave early so she didn’t get to make one. But we are going to make more next month too.

Isn’t it interesting how they are all so different? Hope you have a great weekend.

Reduction Linocut Complete

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design

The little bird is finished! It is quite a process doing the reduction linocut method but the results are definitely worth the effort. None of my prints are perfect, I seem to be a bit messy with this printing process. And my registrations aren’t perfect but I learned a lot and will do better next time.

Here’s the progression of the print minus the first print where I printed green/blue and had little specks of white left. I had wanted the background to be a bit more of a mixture of colors but found that hard to do with the brayer.

I tried a couple of prints with allowing the black to get on to the carved out space around the bird. I don’t mind this look but wish it had looked more branch like instead of so spotty. Plus the edges around the bird and branch look a little artificial since there is no spottiness there. The colors in all these photos is not the best due to low light conditions for photos.

I’m happy with the result since I had never tried this before. It takes a bit of practice and work to get your system set up. I will try some registration pins the next time I do a linocut so I can work out that process a little better. I might work into a few of these prints to give the background a little more life. I have to wait until the ink dries to see what will work best for that.

Better Than Expected

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design, printing

After spending hours on this reduction linocut process, I was getting a bit discouraged because I didn’t feel the prints were going to turn out. But I pressed (ha ha) on and carved out the areas in the block today that were to stay light gray. My original plan was to print dark gray and then brown, but I decided I could do that fairly easily in one pass instead of two. There will be less detail on the branch but the important part is the bird and I want to complete this project soon.

I carved out all the parts that were to stay light gray. I left some feathery bits on the bird’s body to give him more texture. His upper body is darker gray than the bottom so I left more printable linoleum there.

And I printed all 16 of my prints. Quite a few of these, the registration is off but they still look pretty good. So much better than I expected.

Here’s one where you can even see the white bits fairly well. Now all I have left to print is the black layer. So I am letting these dry and I’ll carve out everything on the lino block except the black on the bird and some shadows on the branch. I am really looking forward to seeing the end result now as my little bird definitely looks like a bird now.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Louise Saves the Day!

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design

Since I last posted about my experience with reduction linocut printing, we had one of our art meetings. And Louise brought me a “printing press”. It was made to emboss metal but it didn’t work the way Louise wanted it to so she said I could try it with my linocuts. It worked perfectly and saved me so much time! Thank you Louise!

So you can see the press on near the middle of the photo of my studio getting ready to print. It has the green foam sitting on it. The first thing I had to do was figure out how many layers were needed in the press to get the right pressure. Once I got that figured out it was great.

I used the registration jig on the far left to line up my lino block and paper. This is where I am printing the remaining backgrounds. I had gotten so tired the last time I was printing that I didn’t finish the full run. So the picture on the right shows the lino block with the paper on it. Then I covered that with another piece of paper and the acrylic block that is provided with the press.

I then rolled the sandwich through the press and it worked. It saves so much time and the prints are better than what I can achieve by hand. So I printed the rest of the backgrounds.

Then next step was to carve out everything that I wanted to stay blue/green. So here’s the linoleum block after carving. I made the background with random strokes so that if grey, brown or black gets on the background it just looks like branches. Then on to printing grey. The biggest problem was the registration. Even with my registration jig, my prints did not line up well. I realize now that my white areas should have been carved bigger to leave a little room for error. Note to self, remember this point for next time.

I printed my 16 prints and most did not line up very well at all. I have maybe 5-6 prints that are fairly well lined up. I stopped using my jig and just started eyeing the placement of the paper on the block and that worked better. Obviously my jig needs a bit of work. I have ordered some registration pins and I will use those next time. Not this series of prints since I didn’t leave enough of an edge to use the pins this time.

Here’s one of the prints that is lined up fairly well. Next, I have to carve out what will stay grey and then I will print brown. Then only one color left after that. This is quite the process! More updates to follow!

Winter Chat

Posted on by under sketch book

I saw these little birds all congregating in a tree in the Costco parking lot. They were making lots of noise and seemed that they were talking to each other.

So I did a little water color sketch of them. I think it needs a bit more definition and a few darker values but my group all thought it was good the way it is. What do you think?