the blue chisel

Welcoming New Beginnings

2012-01-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

Well, two weeks into January and I'm still thinking about what I'd like to accomplish this year. It's true that each new day, regardless when it is, can be seen as a clean slate. But I like the symbolism of the new year stretching out unmarked ahead of me. And, while I don't necessarily think of them as "resolutions", I believe goals are important. One of my favourite phrases in the I Ching is: "it's good to have somewhere to go". To me that pretty much says it all but, because I'm one of these people who like structure, I want a road map to look at whether I'm going on a road trip or navigating life.

Lately though, I'm starting to consider I might be just a bit too attached to the idea of order and could use some spontaneity here and there. Because while some rules are crucial to getting along in society, and some rules exist because they represent the most efficient way to do something, if rules never got broken, or boundaries stretched, there would be no innovation and we'd still be in the dark ages.

Along those lines, one of my goals for this coming year is to be more impulsive, to listen to my instincts more, and to be less bound by the structures I've imposed upon myself in the past. I have a feeling that developing some more flexibility might not be a bad idea anyway, particularly as the world we're living in seems to become more and more volatile. Agility, in all ways, seems like a good skill to develop.

Beyond this, I'd of course like to think I'll make more time for myself and my creative pursuits this year but, without wanting to sound negative, I'm not sure that will happen. Not with the demands of family and work which, the situation with my parents being what it is, are becoming greater. So, instead, I've decided to work more on learning to accept things as they are (given that changing them is not possible without more sacrifices than I'm willing to make) and not get so resentful when things don't work out as perfectly as I want. I know it's always a matter of perspective but I don't always remember it so I'm going to work on that. And yes, on my printmaking as well and I've started on a new print so hopefully I'll have some pictures to show soon.

For now, I hope everyone's had a wonderful and hopeful start to the new year and that the changes 2012 brings are positive ones.

Crystal Crag In The Bag

2011-12-05T17:41:00.001-08:00

With Christmas less than a month away and all the related commitments looming, I took a quick innventory of my upcoming free time, i.e. printmaking time, and realized I won't have any. Panic! This one weekend was all that was left to get it together and get the Crystal Crag print finished. Otherwise it would end up haunting January like the ghost of Christmas past and that would be a bad start to the new year. I like closure.

It was a carving frenzy, lots of narrow and odd-shaped areas to clear away again. Fortunately I recently found a series of radio broadcasts from the Czech Republic, Toulky Ceskou Minulosti (which translates roughly as Strolls Through the Czech Past), and I was listening to the episodes while I carved. The programs begin with a look at prehistory, centuries before Cromagnon man showed up, and cover the span of time that followed until the 20th century. They're based on a series of witty history books published about 15 years ago I think. Fascinating stuff right? No, really...the migration of tribes and ancient Celts and all that. Sort of a more intricatelly detailed and scholarly version of an Edgar Rutherford novel.

Oddly enough, neither Roland nor Nora fully share my enthusiasm but so be it. I suppose it may sound dry to some but I totally lap it up. Plus, since the broadcasts are in Czech, listening exercises my mind a bit while I'm at it. Or so I tell myself, despite the fact that being fluent in two languages didn't seem to help my mother all that much. If anything, it now makes conversations with her more of a puzzle as she interweaves one language with the other. But what the hell; the radio broadcasts make the carving fly by. And apparently there are 850 episodes or some such crazy number so I have a good long way to go. I'm up to number 15.

Here's the second-to-last colour of the print:

And the final one:

Crystal Crag, Lake George - Reduction Linocut

7 x 9.5 inches

I find a nice sense of closure in finishing out this year's printing with a work built on the memory of one of my favourite places.

Heros and Demons

2011-11-27T14:45:00.001-08:00

The trouble with having a bunch of diverse interests is that they all compete for equal time. Which is maybe ok when there's some time to spare but, as I often lament, it's not the case for me. My interest in many different things often means having to neglect some of those things in favour of others. For example, I've always been fascinated by history and myth. Having rediscovered Joseph Campbell a few weeks ago, suddenly I feel an irrisistible urge to delve headlong into a re-examination of world mythology, symbolism, and Jungian archetypes and, if that's not enough, of esoteric alchemy. There's such a wealth of material out there on this I could make it a life-long study but, instead, I'm trying to grasp these concepts in a few hours per week.

And that means I'm not, at least for a while, devoting time to printmaking as regularly as before. I suspect I'm turning to a study of more transcendent ideas because I need something to take me away from the concerns with my parents and their dementia issues. As much as I find solace in my creative work, I have a hard time not letting the worries intrude while I carve or draw and I really don't want my prints to become vehicles for my frustration.

I spent four Wednesday nights in a workshop for the caregivers of people with dementia and I will say the following two things only about it here. Number one: yes, guilt and grief are my new middle names and, number two, if you are someone who also looks after someone with dementia, get in touch with the Alzheimer's Society. They are an invaluable resourse. In spite of this, I recognize that a support group can only take me so far. I need to find something more to fill up my brain with and thus my escape into studies of the anima mundi.

Anyway, I have added two new colours to the Crystal Crag print and I'm very happy with the progress so far.

Two more to go now and I'm really hoping to get them in before I have to start thinking about Chrismas baking. Again!!!

Oh, the Wind, the Wind is Blowing...

2011-11-14T18:26:00.001-08:00

I took an afternoon walk in the sun today and nearly froze my nose off. The wind, clearly having just howled in from Alaska or Siberia or some such arctic place, was a physical presence with icy claws.

What! It's November already?! Unbelievable. Where did the last three weeks go? And, not only is it November already, six Saturdays and it'll be Christmas. Now there's a cheery notion. It suddenly hits me that I haven't given even a single thought to Christmas cards, until now anyway, and the idea of cards fills me with dread more than anything. In past years I think I was well on the way to carving the block for them by mid-November but this time I'm not sure I'll be making any. I think if it were possible at all, I'd hide away in a cabin in the woods somewhere, ignore Christmas all together, and just draw and read. And listen to Schubert and Neil Young, who are both dark enough and deep enough to fit the mood.

I'm thinking, would my parents notice if we didn't do Christmas this year? Hmmmm....

But I guess that's not really an option. So, instead, I'm working on a new print and liking that well enough for now. I'm still reliving memories of our summer travels it seems because this next print is also inspired by one of the places we stopped at...one of my heaven on earth places.

This is a picture of Crystal Crag, looming above Lake George just outside of Mammoth Lakes, California, and it's the inspiration for the new linocut. I know I'm not the first person to do an artistic rendition of it, I Googled it and found quite a few paintings of it, but I didn't see any linocuts so maybe this will be the first. I've been working on it for a couple of weeks, just didn't have much time to post about it. But I got a good start to printing this weekend.

Today, a day off for me, I actually even printed two colours, all in the same day, so together with the first one done yesterday, I'm moving along well:

I suppose if I can't physically remove myself and Roland into a place of immense natural beauty, I can at least go there mentally. And if I can just keep Christmas at bay a little longer..

Ok, I Give Up - No, Wait...Let's Try This!

2011-10-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

There are times when, on the path to "let's try this and see if it'll work", it's good to know when to stop. Such was the case yesterday, when I worked on my "fix" for what was in my mind the washed-out sky problem.

The solution actually came fairly quickly; looking at the block I realized it was still, though mostly carved away, in pretty good shape. So I laid a piece of tracing paper over the sky area of one of the prints, cut it out, and traced around its outline, wrong side up, onto a leftover scrap of textured mat board. I then used double-sided tape to attach the mat board piece to the block so it looked like this:

And then, because I was hoping to duplicate the texture I got for the sky earlier, I rolled the pattern-tracing wheel over the mat board again to make little indents:

My idea was that if the slight texture of the mat board didn't produce an interesting enough effect, maybe the indents would. Well, they both did dick all. The ink rolled on beautifully and registered beautifully, so I was at least gratified I got the mat piece cut out and placed right, but it was totally opaque and flat. It looked good but...no texture.

And now this is where I should have just said "it is what it is" (even though I really HATE that phrase) and printed off the rest of the edition and called it done. But no. That's not where it stayed because I got the "brilliant" idea to see if I could cut some lines into the mat board with one of my carving gouges.

I wiped off the ink (not really sure why since I tried the gouge on a different piece of mat anyway) which didn't work; the paper just tore away. I tried running the flat end of a dinner knife along to create an indent but that didn't work either. With that, I finally decided to accept things as they are, returned to the original piece, and set about rolling on more ink and carrying on with the printing. Suprise! Because the rag I'd wiped the mat board piece with, needlessly, was just a little bit damp, the mat board piece had become damp too and, go figure, fell apart. Now there were bits of brown mat clinging to the brayer and mixed in with the rolled out ink and the inking glass was just a mess.

I'll let you imagine the colourful language I save for times such as these.

My next thought was to just blow it all off for this week and do it all again next weekend. Except one of the bits of code I've been programmed with is "never leave for tomorrow what can be done today". And I really do try to live by that, if only so I have less stuff to feel guilty about. Plus, I have an idea for a new print and I want to be done with this one. Now. So even though I still had to get outside to turn over the garden beds and get next year's garlic in the ground, I went and started again. I cut a piece of foam board this time, no texture (enough f-ing around for one day thank you), attached it to the mat board piece, and printed the rest of the edition. Was it worth it? I'm going to tell myself yes. What else am I gonna do?

La Grande - Reduction Linocut
9.5" x 8"
Edition of 7

Afterward, I went and planted garlic....Really, there's nothing like the smell of compost to make one forget about other, minor frustrations.

Not the "La Grande" Finale

2011-10-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

Well, now that I’ve added the "last" colour to the La Grande print, I have to face up to not being finished yet. Maybe.

The problem is I don’t like the sky. I know, I know, I was so proud of how very cleverly I managed to work in the little bit of texture into it but now, when I see it with all the other colours in place, I find it’s not bold enough. It’s kind of blah. Too pale, the wrong shade, I don’t know exactly what it is about it I don’t like, but it pleases me not.

I’m weighing a decision to overprint it with a richer colour – yes, at the cost of the texture – and I’m trying to figure out the best way to do that. And if it's worth the trouble. Because this being a reduction print, there’s almost nothing left of the block.

Which means I have to either do a new block (and no way am I doing that), or maybe use foam board again just for the sky. And then I’ve got to figure out the logistics of positioning the new piece into the registration jig I’ve got set and lining it all up so I don't misregister the whole thing at the last minute and totally screw it up.
So it goes. On the plus side, now I can delay the decision of what my next print will be by another week so, in a twisted kind of way that’s there's a plus side.

Next Colours in the La Grande Print

2011-10-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

I've been down in the dumps the last couple of weeks again. Issues with my parents and my care of them weighed down and overwhelmed me and, as a result, I've been dispirited and uninspired to do much beyond escaping into my book and losing myself in alternate realities.

By the time some of the gloom lifted and I returned to my La Grande block and print, I took my time in carving the checkerboard pattern I added. With all the little squares it was a minor optical illusion and I wanted to make sure I didn't make any mistakes.

And yet, even with drawing the pattern right on the block and shading in the parts that were supposed to be cut out, I still managed to skip one little square somehow. Of course this threw the whole thing off; I had to cheat the pattern back into submission and hope it wouldn't show too much when printed.

In the end I think it turned out ok though. The flub is there but not glaring and it's all good. These are the next two colours in:

And the second to last one:

Now it's one colour left to go and so far no real decision on what my next print will be. But I'm fairly sure, when the time comes, so will the idea.

Still Blocking the Block

2011-09-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

I was thinking I'd be half-way to being blind by now from the fairly small texture bits I plan to carve for this current print. But I was jumping ahead of myself and trying to put on the coat before the wool was spun or something like that. I forgot about having to block in the base colours first.

For this week then, I've added some partial texture to the intersecting band and blocked in the background for two sections of hillside.

The texture carving comes next, providing I can subdue the head cold I've been hit with today.

Expanding and Contracting

2011-09-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been two weeks since we got back from our travels and, although I've settled back into the routine of work and responsibility, it's been a slow settling. I can't shake the feeling that I'm doing it against my will. In Mammoth Lakes, in a campbround above Lake George, we revisited with a friend we made there 24 years ago. We sat around the fire, gratefull for its warmth and for the crisp air and the silence of the night, and we talked about how effortless it is, when we're alone in (and with) nature, to let our inner selves expand. How automatically we attune to the magnitude around us so that our senses become much more acute: we hear the leaves move with the smallest breeze and we hear the sound of a stream from a distance. How our souls stretch out and breathe again after being confined.

In the world of office towers, surrounded by the noise of lawnmowers and traffic and by hundreds of other people, we tend pull in those sensors and contract. It's a social self-preservation thing I guess. I once read how in Japan, a society with very little privacy anywhere, where, for centuries, the walls in homes were made of rice paper, people learned to function by drawing into themselves. By creating a little shell of private space around themselves and focusing within. Maybe we need to do that just to stay sane. Oddly, though I once thrived on the buzz of the city, I'm realizing I now have a preference for more remote, less populated places. Places I can stretch out into.

Anyway, the divide between our holiday and regular life gets greater with each day. The memories from the trip are giving way to the small rituals of daily life. I'm trying to keep those memories alive a little longer, to cling to that sense of expansion I felt when we were driving around, absorbing the vast and vacant natural spaces of America. To do that, I'm taking the inspiration for my next print from the trip. Ironically, it's not a place we actually stopped in, nor do I have a photo for reference. All I have is a memory and a sketch I drew in a few seconds while we were driving and I looked out the window and saw a scene that resonated.

We were near La Grande, Oregon and were passing a stretch of rolling slopes, green and gold, seemingly cut by a band of dark I don't what. Gravel? Charcoal? Whatever it was, the mixture of green, gold, and taupe was unusual and lovely and short-lasting. I guess I could have asked Roland to pull over but I didn't. Even on the road there were deadlines it seems. So I drew the sketch and made notes on the colours and promised myself it would be a print.

I drew a couple of colour sketches and played with patterns,

and today I printed the first colours. I decided to begin with a cheat for the sky and for the intersecting darker band and mounted two pieces of very thin foam board into the appropriate places on the block with double-sided tape (the block is sideways in the picture just because that's the way I took the photo):

I also wanted to incorporate some texture into the sky but didn't want this texture to be overly pronounced. I was considering a couple of options when I remembered a couple of pattern-tracing wheels I still have from my sewing days.

The teeth, rolled across the foam board, gave me exactly the texture I wanted.

The above is a close up of the inked up foam strip for the sky. Here is how it turned out in the actual print:

I'm very happy with the result. Now of course, the real work begins and I have to start carving.

Road Work, Road Kill, and Rest Areas

2011-09-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

But no road rage. Not even in Salt Lake City where we ended up in the mayhem of rush hour one hot afternoon. Actually, in Salt Lake it was more like road fear. OMG: me driving, for the second time only, a van with the steering wheel on the right hand side of the vehicle (and therefore opposite to what I’m used to) dodging drivers bludgeoning their way into my lane from one side and airborne hunks of re-treads from the other. Never again will I doubt someone who comments on how “polite” Vancouver drivers are. Now I know. They (we) really really are. And, if I never find myself in Salt Lake City again, fine by me.

Still, we made it back from our road trip safely and much richer in experience. The van, affectionately nicknamed "Bluto" (short for blue toad), was everything we envisioned when we started planning this trip last September. Through ten nights and eleven days, six states, and roughly 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles), most of those miles on the back roads, it was a great way to travel. And, no hassle at all setting up (and taking down) the bed Roland built, complete with storage underneath.

Now we’re back sorting through the pictures we took and having a hard time believing we were ever away. Funny how that goes. But there are a few things I learned and might even remember as the time wears on:

Trite as it may sound, dreams can become reality if you work for them and have patience.
Some things keep better as memories (Sedona, Arizona 30 years ago).
Some things still live up to the memories (Wood's Lodge, Mammoth Lakes, California).
37°C (98°F) is relatively cool (when the temperature drops to 37°C from 49°C (120°F) (Death Valley, California).
Sometimes, when you think you're lost, you find the most awesome places and when you think you know exactly where you're going you end up in an ugly campsite right next to a highway.
Don't wear a headlamp flashlight (even a little one) and try to make dinner after dark in a campsite full of bugs.
The most expensive campsite doesn't necessarily end up being the nicest, cleanest, and worthwhile.
Bears can be less frightening than some people.
It's forbidden to gather rocks from State and National parks but hey, it's ok to take your gun in and kill the wildlife!!!
The aroma of pine tar is my favourite smell in the whole world.

Beyond the statistics though, it’s impossible to describe the places we visited and what we found there in a blog post so I won’t. It may be a cliché that pictures are worth a thousand words but it is the truth isn’t it, so here's a sampling:

Craters of the Moon National Monument - Idaho

Fremont Indian State Park (Castle Rock) - Utah

Red Rock Canyon - Utah

Death Valley - California

Mammoth Lakes, High Sierras - California

Mono Lake - California

Redwood National Park - California

As to artwork...well...before we left I’d resolved to sketch something at each of our camping sites but it didn’t always work out. Getting to the campsite too late, trying to get on the road early on most mornings, that sort of stuff. I managed some sketches, some of them as we were driving past the thing I was sketching, but not nearly as many as I would have liked. But even with less drawing time than I wanted I came back with a head full of ideas for prints. I’ve started on the first one so I hope to have something on that by next week.

Slowly trying to get back into the swing of things...

Gettting It Done

2011-08-08T21:42:00.000-07:00

Well, for a little while, it was beginning to look as if I wouldn’t finish the lake print before our big trip. I am, as a rule, very organized and systematic, probably to the point where the line between organized and anal gets just a little blurry at times. I thought I had a pretty good concept of all the stuff that had to be dealt with before we hop in the van and go chase the ghosts of our younger selves. But I overestimated how efficient we would be at getting it all done. Or maybe it’s just the random element of the unforeseen: the little bit of "Loki-ism" that throws a sprinkling of chaos into daily life. Whatever the case, my chances of getting the final colours of the print done, and having a clean slate before we left, appeared to be dwindling as this past weekend wore on.

All's well that ends well though and it did end well. Somewhere between studying road maps, baking muffins (lots and lots of raspberries this year), sewing a curtain for the van, and taking the dog to the vet to get his rabies shot and his anal glands squeezed...if you have to ask, you don't want to know...I carved the last bit of the block and printed the last pass on the print.

Here are the final two stages, printed over the past couple of Sundays:

Sleeping Lake - Reduction Linocut
8" x 11" - edition of 12

I'm ready for the next one, whatever it might be.

Pass the Wrench?

2011-07-25T22:19:00.000-07:00

Moving steadily along, I’ve added the next colour to my latest, so far un-named, print.

Yes, the islands have been transformed into dark uninteresting blobs but that, I hope and am fairly sure, is not their final state. I sat on the teeter-totter about what to print first: the lighter tone for the islands, which would also add a lighter tone into the tree branches, or the darker tone for the branches. It’s always a bit of a quandary, this reduction cut business. I went with the second option but it means I’ll have to back-track now and I’m banking on the obscuring power of white. Of course, it was only after I printed the new colour into the full edition that I realized I could have/should have masked the branches and done the islands. Hindsight.

I was lucky to get time to print at all because we have now officially embarked on this year’s summer project. We’re celebrating our 25^th wedding anniversary this year and, in honour of this, we’re planning a short road trip reminiscent of those we took just after we were married. Then, it was in a converted banana-coloured postal van we bought at auction for $800. This time we’re travelling in something a little more compact. We imported a Mitsubishi Delica from Japan in December (right-hand drive and all),

and are in the process of turning the back of the cab into a place we can sleep. Having done the hotel and restaurant type of holiday last summer, we’re ready for something more our style. We both prefer to camp and, given a choice, would pick a campsite among the trees over a bed in a hotel room any day.

Although I did the bulk of the work in camperizing the postal van all those years ago, this time Roland will do the hard work and I’m providing the inspiration and “wifely guidance”. As a result, we spent a good chunk of the weekend driving around looking for fold-up mattresses and then another chunk hanging out in the van looking for and discussing different possibilities. Next weekend, the work begins and I'm already busy figuring out where and when printing time will be...

Learning From Others

2011-07-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

I guess I've been doing a bit too much “poor me” whining, mainly on the usual theme of lack of creative time etc. etc., because the last couple of days sent a couple of gifts (as if to say: “enough self-pity already; life isn’t as bad as all that”) that have led me to see my work a little differently.

The first came through one of the two books I’m reading: What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell – a collection of articles he wrote for the New Yorker over a number of years. He’s a great writer so all the articles have, so far, been interesting and entertaining. But there were also a few with the kind of information that’s fascinating yet, in the case of a brain like mine, immediately forgotten. I imagine I’d love to be one of those people who can quote facts and figures as if they’re reading an encyclopaedia visible only to themselves, but no matter how I strive to etch specific logistic details into memory, they rarely stay there long enough for me to re-quote them.

Yesterday though, I started on an article I’d do well to remember (and I hope I will): Late Bloomers...Why Do We Equate Genius With Precocity? In an examination, and repudiation, of the idea that:

"doing something truly creative…requires freshness and exuberance and energy of youth”

the article, among other things, draws a comparison between the work and creative approaches of Picasso, as the youthful prodigy, and Cezanne, as the late bloomer, and describes how very different the working methods of both men were. It’s actually hugely inspiring to me…reading about Cezanne’s lifelong struggle for perfection and about how many canvases he destroyed because they never captured what he intended them to. And I was amazed to read he never had his first solo art show until he was 56! In Cezanne’s day 56 must have seemed nearly done with!

Hard as I try not to, I do at times fall into the downward spiral of negative thinking and regret my years of creative inertia. Which of course leads to the whole “time is slipping through my fingers” panic. So it’s good to be reminded, as often as possible in my case perhaps, that every artist is different, that the important thing is just to do the work and to hell with trying to draw comparisons between myself and someone else in vastly different circumstances. Sometimes, slow and steady does win the race, even if the race is only with my own shadows. Besides, 56 still seems like a long enough time away.

The second gift came in the form of the lovely write-up my Dreams print got in a blog post by printmaker Martha Knox, on her blog: Words on Woodcuts. It’s immensely gratifying that someone else, a peer, likes something I’ve created enough to actually take the time to write good things about it. And it’s wonderful to learn how others interpret my work and what they see in it.

It’s been an uplifting couple of days and, on that positive note, finally, here is this week’s installment of the latest print:

So far so good...

A Fragment of the Dream

2011-07-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

Wanted: A generous philanthropist willing to provide funding and support for the artistic development of an aspiring Canadian printmaker, enabling her to stay at home and follow her muse. Fulltime instead of only here and there on weekends.

If I put an add on Craigslist would I get any takers?

I’m in my Man of La Mancha (”dreaming the impossible dream”) mode again, something that seems to happen whenever I get a rare day off at home to spend on print pursuits. I should really have more such days, that’s the whole idea behind my working extended hours in exchange for a full day off every few weeks. But it hardly ever turns out quite like that.

First, when my days off fell on alternate Fridays, most of my plans for creative time got scuttled because Roland has all his Fridays off. So instead of drawing, or carving, or printing etc. (because traffic is SO much better on Fridays…NOT!) we went grocery shopping, or took the dog for a haircut, or the car for an oil change, or in quest of any other random mundane whatever that came up. Not that I don’t enjoy hanging out with Roland. Really, I absolutely do. Despite my strong dislike for shopping we have as much fun as anyone can have buying eggs, or canine hair grooming services, or "shnermutzles" at Home Depot. But I want more creative time dammit!

So when my alternating days off got switched to every third Monday, I sort of regretted the lost opportunities for marital bonding but looked forward to more time to devote to the artwork. And then my mother got diagnosed with dementia and my father decided to improve his already faltering mental faculties via random bouts of “too much red wine consumption”. Hence, most of my free Mondays now fall to my parents’ medical/dental appointments. I'll confess, I’m beginning to have some doubts about all those “abundant/nourishing universe” and “all you need to do is image your dream and it will happen” theories. Or am I, subconsciously somehow, imaging the wrong things?

Anyway, yesterday, for the first time in what seems like a very long time, I got a free day. A full day. From get-up time to dinner time. No medical appointments. No shopping. My time my own. Ok, I had to wash the floor and the dog’s box and bedding after he threw up on them sometime during the night but otherwise no responsibilities. I didn’t even turn on the computer. I carved and printed and so managed to reach my goal of getting two colours down on this current print this weekend instead of just one. Here are the three stages so far:

1) A pale grey background

2) A darker grey

3) A pale grey-green

Granted, it was still a bit of a hurdle because on Sunday morning, as I was rousing into the day with fluffy thoughts of how I’d print and then loll around the garden, Roland said: let’s take the day and go for a long drive to Hell’s Gate (two and half hours away) and do some hiking. And I, good wife that I am, said: ok. At least if wasn’t the hardware store he wanted to take me to. In the end we didn’t end up going all that way, we were too late starting, but headed to Harrison Lake instead.

We stopped at Bridal Falls where neither of us had ever been and took some pictures that, because of the angle, didn’t turn out too well. Actually the falls were somewhat impressive but I was maybe more awed by what seems to be erosion and the resulting tangled mass of exposed roots. It's like a scene in some fantasy world isn't it?

I'm thinking, as usual, there must a print in there somewhere but I'll have to find that patron first, to free up some more days like yesterday.

Still on the Merry-Go-Round

2011-07-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

What a catalogue of distractions the past few weeks has been! So many things, not all of them unpleasant but still seemingly intended to keep me away from hands-on printmaking. First, there were our three Sunday trips to Granville Island: one to deliver my prints to the Open Print show, a second to actually see the show, a third to pick up the prints and take them home. And, since we can’t EVER take a trip to Granville Island without spending at least one hour or so wandering around and then having coffee and rustic peach & rosemary tarts (alone worth the trip to Terra Breads) and watching the water and the seagulls (hoping they don’t crap on my head), a chunk of time is always involved.

Then there’s the garden. With all the rain we’ve been getting the weeds are growing like…well…weeds. So, I either take whatever chance I have to get out there and subdue them or I feel guilty. Being that guilt is antithetical to the creative process, I’ve been spending less time on my art and more time crawling around in the dirt.

Finally, a HUGE slot of time went to getting a new computer up and running: getting used to MS Office 2010, transferring all my files and programs, and ironing out all the inherent and resulting wrinkles.

And yet I am, albeit a bit sporadically, working on a new print. “Slowly slowly catch a monkey” is what a friend from South Africa used to say and though I’m not wholly sure what it means, it seems to fit.

My new print, in a departure from the kid’s book series (although I did do some sketches for print four in the set) is inspired by a photo I took on a local hike a couple of years ago. The misty moodiness of the image pretty much guaranteed the picture a place on the “future prints” list from the start.

I did a lot of sketches for this one, more than I normally do, playing around with keeping both of the trees in the forefront in, and not liking any of the results. In the end, I took out one of the trees, changed the background a bit, and ended up with a version I’m very happy with.

I printed the first colour yesterday but there is really nothing to see yet. Here’s a sampling of just a few of the preliminary sketches and a colour breakdown that's very close to how I'm envisioning the print for now:

I hope to print colour two next weekend and should have something to show of the actual print by then.

I also had a great piece of news this weekend. With the Open Print show at the Federation Gallery now finished, we headed to Granville Island to pick up my prints. I was thrilled to find out one of my three submissions, Hummingbird Vine, had sold. I had an inspiring conversation with the gallery director while we were there; apparently it’s been one of their best shows as per print submissions and work selection yet one of their worst for sales. I’m not really surprised, given our still-floundering economy and, although the director said all three of my prints would have sold easily in other years, I have no cause to complain about selling just the one. There’s always next year right?

One nice thing about the gallery is their online record of shows; you can actually see images of the pieces exhibited in each show even after it’s finished. For those interested, the link to this year’s Open Print show is here. Regrettably, I’m such a nob when it comes to self-promotion and marketing etc. I didn’t find out about the online segment of the show until it was almost done. I could have been sending it out to all kinds of people...Again, there's always next year.

Focusing on Focusing

2011-06-13T22:35:00.000-07:00

I've just realized I'm not all that great at working on more than one project at a time. I really want to be able to do it, to be the type of artist who has several things "on the go" at any given time. But it seems I have a hard time even managing a couple of different linocuts and the sketches for a third and the prep work for just a few pieces in a show. But wait! Isn't having a full-time job, and looking after a house and garden, and a dog and cat, and a family (aging parents included), AND trying to squeeze in some creative time, basically a case of working on different projects all at once. And I seem to be doing all that reasonably well. So maybe it's not that I'm not good at the many projects thing, maybe I'm just not good at too many many projects. Maybe I have a limit.

Or maybe this preamble ramble is just an attempt at rationalizing why this latest print of mine, Sentinel 2, didn't turn out to be anything like what I had in mind when I started it. Where did it go sideways? What happened to steer me away from the light bright colour scheme I thought I was aiming for and into the dark waters of this?

It's not that I don't like it, necessarily. It's interesting enough and somehow reminiscent of those beaded South Asian fabrics, of which the only example I could find is this purse at novica.com:

There's a similarity right?

Still it's an entire continent away from my original plans for this print so I have to wonder whether I didn't approach the work with as much focus as I should have. Perhaps working on this print, and at the same time working on the caterpillars in the nursery rhyme series, and then beginning sketches and roughs for my next print after this one, along with all the other stuff I have to stretch my brain to, was too much attention-splitting. I've gotta admit, somewhere in that jumble, my interest for this print waned a little and I stopped caring about it all that much until, finally, it was just "let's get the damn thing finished". Which, really, is a terrible attitude to approach anything with. So, another lesson learned and another one of those hand-on-heart: "I will not make the same mistake next time" moments.

I do wonder though, will I ever reach a time when it feels like I'm really reaping all the benefits of those lessons learned?

Surprises Good and Bad

2011-05-31T22:08:00.000-07:00

Well I thought I'd be finished with the Rooster print this week. So sure was I, in fact, that I was already planning where to turn next. I have a new sketch I'm working on, and I need to draw the next image in the nursery rhyme series because all I have is thumbnails now, and I really need to update my website. But, to my surprise and slight dismay, as soon as I printed this last colour, I knew it wasn't going to end here.

Was it Humphrey Bogart who said: It ain't over til it's over kid?

For this last layer of the print, I abandoned the Daniel Smith inks I'd used up to now and, wanting a more translucent effect, used Georgian oil paint and printmaking medium. Also, since I needed to make the comb and tail stand out distinctly, I again went backwards and lighter. For the most part I really like the way it turned out. I'm not sure if it translates in the scan but, in real life, the appearance is sort of verdigris-like and I like that a lot. What I don't like is that the new layer, in being the same value as the petals, makes them look a bit lost. So now I need to, somehow, add in some shadows around the blooms without affecting the comb and tail.

Until I deal with that issue, no work on the next nursery rhyme drawing and not much time for the sketch for my next print. So it goes.

Surprise number two actually came this last Friday, so earlier than the one with the rooster print, and was, though perhaps more positive, no less time-involving. A few weeks ago I submitted three of my prints to the Open Print show at the Federation Gallery on Granville Island and found out on Friday all three were accepted. I'm feeling pretty darn good about that of course. Absolutely I am. But, because the gallery hours don't fit with my work schedule and I only have next weekend to deliver the framed prints, a sizable chunk of time this past weekend went to getting frames, and cutting mats, and framing, framing, framing.

And yet, despite all this flurry of activity, the final surprise was that even with all that going on, Roland and I managed to get out to White Rock this weekend and breathe in some sea air and sunshine.

Not a bad weekend then, really, though of course with my prints in a show, there's even more pressure to get that website update happening....

Three Little Caterpillars

2011-05-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

A bit of celebration on order. The caterpillars are now done:

Three little caterpillars
spinning cocoons,
will turn into butterflies
on a night in June.

And it's the Victoria Day holiday Monday. The day when I always wonder why, after all these years, we're still celebrating the birthday of a distant and dead queen. Not that I'm complaining. Not at all. The Victoria Day long weekend is probably my favourite long weekend because spring is, usually, in full bloom and the summer is still a long bright stretch ahead.

The Victoria Day weekend is the unofficial the start of bare feet and sandals and summer dress season. There was actually a hint of it last week already and we finally had a few consecutive days of sun and normal May weather. I skipped the gym and power-walked around the Coal Harbour stretch of the seawall three days in a row at lunch, falling in love with the city all over again:

Photo: Images West Marketing
Vancouver, BC, Canada

There's definitely something to be said for working downtown in the summer.

Anyway. Along with finishing up the caterpillar print, I've now added two other colours to The Sentinel 2. First, this dark green:

And then, going backwards, I rolled on a warm gray and over top of it, a black:

That leaves one last colour for next week and the rest of today to get out into the garden and do some planting now long overdue. We've had such terrible weather everything's late is late this year and seedlings I'd normally have in the ground for weeks already are only going out today. It's almost like being in Ontario again...

Printing in the Minor Key?

2011-05-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

Alongside of printmaking I love music. I always have. In our home, music comes on first thing in the morning and stays on until we go to bed. At work, I plug my iPod into the radio and work along with music. When I work on my prints there's always music to keep me company. Neither Roland nor I are TV people and we hate commercial TV, but we'd be lost without music.

These days, we mostly listen to classical because classical music provides a lovely and vivid curtain of sound without, most of the time, being too distracting. We both love pop music too, anything from heavy metal to electronica, but pop music tends to pull me in too much and away from what I'm doing and spells death to concentration. It's great if I'm cleaning house, working out in the garden, or walking the dog, but not so good when I need to really focus on something.

One thing we both have noticed though, over the years, is that we tend to be drawn to music that's written in the minor key. Regardless of genre, classical, rock, jazz, etc. the pieces of music we seem to attune to more than others, are all minor key compositions. I guess we subconsciously prefer the somber, darker and sometime more melancholy emotions invoked. Is this somehow tied to neither one of us being really outgoing "people" people? Hmmmm....

Anyway, why this whole ramble about music to begin with? Well, it really struck me, as I printed the last colour of the Rooster print yesterday, that it's actually possible to apply the minor/major key distinction in music to artwork also. There surely are works of art that tend to resonate in a minor key sort of way (darker muted colours and themes, a sense of mystery or impending drama, etc.), while others, the major key ones, radiate a positive vibe. Oddly enough, despite my affinity for minor key music, most of my prints fall into the second category. Or do they?

The caterpillar print seems to:

But the Rooster is for sure, at least at this point, a departure from the sunlit garden scene I'm basing this print on:

And yet I like it. There are still two or three colours left for this one and the look will change but just on the basis of how it looks now, I want to explore this type of scheme further. Print in D minor coming up?

Voluntary Senility

2011-05-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had one of those glorious sunny spring days we Vancouverites put up with all our crappy weather for. It's true, one day of sun and we turn senile. We forget we've just had three long months of rain and sub-par temperatures and, if we can, we rush out in droves: to go walk the seawall or go biking or start rooting around in the garden or just go out. Anywhere but just out into the air and sun. On a day like yesterday, we take deep breaths of air that holds the promise of all kinds of wonderful things and we tell ourselves what a great city Vancouver is and that it really may just be close to being the "best place on earth".

And then, hello slap of reality, a day like today comes along. Cold and clammy and rainy from morning to night and we're right back to muttering curses at the rain and the cold and grumbling about the "wet west coast" and bitching at our spouses and/or significant others etc. etc. At least until the next sunny day shows up.

I'm kind of at that "sunny day spot" with my prints this week. Last week I was asking myself what the hell I'm even bothering with this whole printmaking business for anyway when, six years into it, I can't even get my colours right; this week the sunshine is turned on and I'm Mrs. Optimistic. Maybe it's voluntary senility at work here too but what ever it is, I'm feeling much better about the last layers I printed yesterday. The pink in the rooster print may seem a little weird from a distance but it's all good. And...I'm even liking the dark green and mustard yellow in the caterpillar print.

Of course, I recognize my current contented state is subject to, like the weather, change overnight. Because there's always that element of unpredictability inherent in the reduction print process and always the potential for taking a step that can, possibly, wreck the results of days' worth of work. But never mind that now. Though tomorrow may rain, for now I'll follow the sun.

Stanley Park Treasure

2011-04-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

This year, I think for the first time ever, my birthday fell on Easter Sunday and that was as good a reason as anything for getting out of cooking Easter dinner. I've been putting out Easter feasts for more years than I can count and the rewards for all the work involved don't seem to be there as much these days. So we opted for a walk in Stanley Park followed by a nice brunch out instead.

The day was drizzly and the walkway along the Seawall was whipped by gusts of wind that tore at our umbrellas and blew my hood off constantly and that got old very quickly. Not wanting to arrive at the restaurant looking like wild bush people, we chose the shelter of the park itself and walked around Lost Lagoon.

The path was, pardon the cliche, a riot of countless shades and nuances of green, everything bursting into new life, and the shrubs and lagoon were full of birds: red-winged black birds, coots, ducks (of course), spotted towhees. I tried to take pictures but the birds, too intent on breakfast, weren't cooperating. Only the swans, nesting and duty-bound to stay with their nests, kept still long enough for me to fiddle with the camera and take a picture:

Bird science neophyte that I am, I was absolutely blown away by the size of their nests. Not that I gave it much thought before, but I'd never guess a swan's nest is such an impressive and massive throne. It just goes to show it's still possible to find a new sense of wonder even in familiar places. Plus, while we didn't consciously set out on an Easter egg hunt when we left the house, we even found an Easter egg:

And what an egg! Huge! Yet oddly very vulnerable somehow, seeing as there's just the one. Marvelous really.

Anyway.

I printed the next colours for both prints yesterday. A bit of a fiasco actually. I didn't have as much time as I normally do, we had an appointment to go to, and I had to rush through the printing a bit. So first, rushing and not thinking, I married up the wrong block with the wrong print and printed the next colour for the garden scene onto the nursery rhyme print. Duh! I knew there was a reason for not working on two prints at the same time!

I'll cut myself a bit of slack (though I did call myself a lot of colourful names first) because both colours I printed last time were similar (yellow) so it was, sort of, an easy mistake for a distracted mind to make. And I only pulled a proof before I realized what I'd done so minimal damage. But then I had to rush through and not fiddle as much with mixing colours and both prints, though mainly the nursery rhyme one, turned out darker than I want. And, a further annoyance, the yellow still looks like mustard.

Like I said, a bit of a fiasco. Obviously, there are lessons to be learned here and I guess I can be grateful for any knew knowledge but even so, I'm now in a somewhat foul mood, debating what to do, and whether I can still make it work or not, and if this is one of those "accidents" that actually end up being a good thing instead of bad.

Time Fades Away

2011-04-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Precious time is slippin' away,
You know you're only queen for a day;
It doesn't matter to which God you pray,
Precious time is slippin' away...
Van Morrison

I've been feeling down lately. It happens from time to time, even though I am, as a rule, a positive, glass half-full person, happy in my reality. Or at least able to accept it and make the most of it. But every now and then, like many people, I look at my life and wish it were a little different. Most often the feeling is connected to the limited amount of time I have for printmaking. That's when I indulge in dreams of waking up in the morning, without having to go work in an office all day to make money, able to start drawing and carving and printing right away. And, yes, I know I've whined about this before and, in the big scheme of things, it's really a minor issue but, as Neil Young so aptly put it: "Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away".

Currently, my blues have a lot to do with my parents' steady downhill slide into old age. My mother has recently been diagnosed with dementia: she lives in an alternate reality that has, I guess, some resemblance to what her life was once like but is mostly fantasy. My father, although marginally better because he at least knows what day it is and what his phone number is, also has severe memory problems and also lives in a world mostly removed from reality. They're still able to look after themselves in a basic way so the health authorities still say they're ok to live with us, but it's rough. Much of the time I feel as if I'm looking after two very stubborn and temperamental children who need to have everything explained to them, over and over again, only to forget the explanations from one day to the next. Looking after all their financial issues, and health issues, and appointments, has not only cut away another chunk of the already limited time I have for printmaking but leaves me in a constant state of mourning for the people I knew who are now gone.

Sadly, standing as witness to the decline of the two of them and remembering that they once were, without exaggeration, brilliant, artistic, capable, and incredibly productive, makes me realize that life can sometimes cut our productivity and creativity short. And I feel an even greater yearning for more creative time, and a greater sense of urgency to make as much as I can of the time I myself have while, ironically, in my new role as "caregiver", there's less of it.

Maybe for this reason, or maybe simply because it's an escape of sorts, I'm working on two prints at once now and, for the first time in a long time, even opted out of movie night last night and worked until 1:00 am to get my blocks "print ready" for today.

The colour I mixed for the second layer of the current nursery rhyme print was a lovely rich egg-yolk yellow but, as is clear in this picture, the blue underneath it muted it down:

I think my next colour will give the gold the illusion of more warmth but for now it looks just a bit dull.

After I finished up with the above for today, I washed the brayer and inking plate and mixed a similar yellow for my other print. For this one though, I'm beginning the print with Georgian oil paints and printmaking medium because I want a more translucent quality.

I'm not sure if the photos really capture the difference between the mixture of oil paint and medium and DS inks but, in real life, it's very easy to see the distinctions in viscosity just in the way it rolls out on the inking plate and block (a more detailed comparison can be found here):

With Daniel Smith inks, the carbon drawing wouldn't be anywhere near as visible as it is here:

And here it is, when printed on BFK Rives heavyweight:

Beyond this, I'm once again on the fence about the next colour(s) and the two options I'm considering are polar opposites to each other. I have to make a decision by next week, before the second colour goes down so I guess I'd better start thinking.

Next Nursery Print

2011-04-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

This is the sketch for the third print in the nursery rhyme series.

I printed the first pass last Sunday,

but didn't finish clearing all the background away in time to print another colour today. I'm really enjoying the carving this time so I'm not rushing it.

I've also been working out some ideas and preparing blocks for a few other, "non-kid" prints. The first is based on a photograph taken in the garden a couple of summers ago.

This will be the second print I do of this rooster, the first being one of the very first prints I ever did, and I'd like to try something a little different with the print this time. I've purposely kept the sketch minimalistic and hope to work in more detail as I carve.

West Print / East Print

2011-03-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

First, the west.

I'm in between prints, roughly translated as: I was indulging a lazy streak last week and didn't start working on another print after finishing the last one. And, with no printing to do today, Roland and I went to the Burnaby Art Gallery to see their current Sybil Andrews exhibit.

I saw a couple of her prints in a relief print show at the same gallery a couple of years ago and couldn't resist going back to see more. I absolutely love her work and find it incredibly inspiring. She was born in England but lived in Canada from 1947 until her death in 1992 and is considered to be one of Canada's most notable printmakers. Standing in front of her linocuts today, trying to figure out how exactly she created her textures, it was pretty clear why. She has a fantastic sense of composition and rhythm and her images are so powerful and dynamic you can't help being pulled in.

You can see more of her work here, although I find it puzzling that she reportedly remained active and productive right until her death yet there seems to be so little evidence (at least online) of any work from the last decades of her life. I wonder if she just stopped making prints eventually and only devoted her time to teaching and mentoring or if there's a treasure trove of later prints somewhere?

Anyway, now the East.

Yesterday we stopped at a local thrift store to look for a small wall mirror for my office at work. While there, we were also checking for good, and cheap, frames I could recycle for my own prints when Roland found this:

At first glance he only saw the frame; it's a good one and in really good shape. But as soon as he pointed it out to me, we both noticed the print inside the frame. Clearly an original woodblock, bearing a chop and signed and numbered (?)...it's in oriental characters so I can't tell what it says...by the artist.

It's really lovely though, hand-torn Japanese paper and nicely matted:

And the image is quite intricate:

I'm don't know enough about oriental printmaking (or art for that matter) to tell if this is Chinese or Japanese. Both the dragon and bird seem to have a Chinese feel to me but what do I know. However, at $5.00, which is what this was priced at, I thought it was both a steal and a shame. Clearly, the folks who sort through the donations at the Value Village don't know beans about art. Yet I can't help feeling sad that something like this, that someone obviously put quite a bit of work into, should become a thrift store item. But maybe I'll just consider it my gain and leave it at that.

Two Little Snails

2011-03-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

Print 2 of the nursery rhyme series done.

Two little snails
on a dewy track,
carefully balance
their homes on their backs.

(Reduction Linocut, 7.5 x 9 inches)

Going Dotty

2011-03-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

Most of the time, I really enjoy carving my blocks. I find it meditative and zen-like, sort of like counting rosary or japa mala beads or something similar, my hands busy while my mind chatters away, a hundred thoughts a minute. And, as I've said elsewhere, I enjoy the slow "craft" of the process. I know there are printmakers who use power tools to clear their blocks and shape their images and, while I don't see anything wrong with it, I'm not sure it would be something I'd like doing. Maybe if my prints were really big, and maybe if I had a dedicated studio where bits of block flying around wouldn't be an issue, I might have a different opinion. For now, I'm content to sit and work slowly and silently, listening to music, trying to focus and center.

Of course, there are those times when patience gets tested a little. Like working around all those dots and triangle shapes on the snail bodies in this latest print:

It doesn't seem like it would be but it was a little too slow going even for me. Still, I did finish in time to print and I added in the green today:

Now all that remains is the black.

Little Snail Blue

2011-02-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

Well it turns out last week's teasing glimpse of spring was just that, a tease. Just to bring the point home, mother nature hit us with some snow this weekend and this morning we woke to this:

But this is only the second time we've had snow this year, despite predictions for a tough winter, and the first snow we got, back in November, barely lasted two days. Plus, shoveling was a good workout for both of us this morning so, all things considered, and knowing that the snow drops (and spring) are patiently waiting under the drifts, there's no cause to gripe. Besides, hanging out at home, drinking tea in front of the fireplace, and knowing there's no pressure to get anywhere has it's up side. And it was a good day to print; no need to go out and start working in the yard yet.

I finally reached a decision on which colour to go with for the snails late last night. I had the block cleared and ready to go by dinner time but still hadn't made up my mind on the next colour. So I loaded last week's print into Photoshop and spent the evening mucking around with layers and testing colours yet again. Having the background colours to work with helped a lot, so although the images were rough, they still gave a good enough idea of the overall effect. Keeping in mind that the Photoshop colours are meant only as approximations, first there was red:

Then orange:

And then blue.

I also tried a tan version that didn't work at all but I kind of liked the orange one. I showed my different options to Roland and asked for his opinion but it didn't help. I was, of course, hoping he'd pick the orange version too but he didn't like it. He liked the blue one. (Is is a "guy thing", Stuart?) In the end though, the thing that decided it was the spider print.

I'm not sure why I didn't do it before, one of those stupid lapses I guess, but I finally compared the spider print to both of my considered options, orange and blue, for the snails. At which point it was totally clear that if the snails were orange, the colour scheme would be too close to the spider print. I don't want that; I don't want a theme like that. So that left the one clear choice:

It took me nearly 45 minutes to mix and test and mix and test the ink until I finally got a blue I liked but I'm satisfied with my decision.

The Colour of Spring

2011-02-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I looked out the window and into our back yard and saw a sight that made my heart do a little jig.

The snow drops have come up in the woodland part of the garden. Lots of them.

They've probably been there for a few days already but I'm not at my most observant best on workday mornings, and it's still not fully daylight when I leave the house, so I missed them. But yesterday, sitting down to my Saturday morning bowl of granola, there they were. The harbingers of spring. Nevermind that the weather people are talking about the chance of snow sometime during this next week. Snow shmow. The snow drops are out in the woodland garden and all is well.

All is going pretty well with my printing too. I still haven't decided what colour I'm going to use for the snails in this next print. I've got the sketch propped up against the wall on my desk, which means I look at it at least ten times a day, and each time I look at it I change my mind. I'm playing a game of mental ping pong but that's ok. I still have a week.

I printed the first two colours today...nice happy spring colours:

A week of looking at the prints as they are now will also help settle the decision on the next colour.

Right now, a bigger concern is whether I'll have enough time during this coming week to clear all the parts of the block that need to be taken out before the next pass goes on.

Kid's Book Plate Two

2011-02-09T22:15:00.000-08:00

I'm working on the next illustration for my rediscovered kid's book.

As with the spider print, I had the pencil sketch for this one worked out from years ago. I only made small changes to it, although I still have to give the snails some more breathing room on either side, but deciding on the colours turned out to be trickier than I expected. I really want to keep the number of colours for all the images in this series simple and limited to just a few. Otherwise, I can see this project waiting for completion for another 15 years and by then I might just not be a spry as I am now.

I used five colours for the spider, but two were white and black so, really, I only used three actual colours. And that's what I was aiming for with this next print too. But damned if I can make three colours (and black and white) work so that I like it. Not unless I make the background all one colour and I'm just not sold on that idea. So, after a weekend of fiddling around, I decided on six colours for this next one.

Except, after hours spent the old-fashioned way, pencil-colouring, I also decided I don't like the colour combination all that labour resulted in.

It happens to me every time. I'm not crazy about working out my colours in Photoshop. It may be nuts but I like the smell of pencil shavings and I have a huge set of good pencil crayons so I start my colouring with them. But I get impatient and restless; it takes too long. I then switch to markers which, invariably, because I don't have as many colours to choose from, end up overpowering everything. And they can't be lightened up. Like in the picture above. It's way too bold and way too dull for a kid's book. Too terra-cotta somehow.

At this point, having spent my free hours on the weekend colouring, I don't have the patience to do it again. So, in search of instant gratification, I Photoshopped a few other versions.

#1 - I tried making the green lighter...

#2 - And changing the rust into blue...

#3 - And then the blue into tan...

All of which, of course, took me a fraction of the time it took to colour the thing in with pencils!
Anyway. I think I'm leaning toward the tan version for now. I think. I guess I have time to ponder still. I doubt I'll be ready to print by this weekend since I don't even have the lino glued to the support for now.

One Little Spider

2011-01-30T21:43:00.000-08:00

What a treat to wake up to a cloudless blue sky today. It's impossible to stay indoors on such a crisp and clear day so, even though I was looking forward to printing the last pass of my spider print, Roland and I grabbed the dog and headed out to Tsawwassen's Centennial Beach for some open space and sunshine. It's a bit of a drive from where we are but it's always worth it. We love the combination of grassland on the one side,

and ocean on the other. It's a beautiful contrast.

I brought my camera today, proud of myself for remembering, but ended up only taking a handful of pictures. It was way too windy. Bracing I think is the word. The dozens of ducks out in the water seemed fine with it, but my fingertips got numb whenever I took off my gloves to work the camera so I gave it up. Still, despite the wind, we left the place feeling invigorated and charged up.

Next, the print. Even after almost six years, I still have that little bit of anxiety before each time I print. It gets stronger in relation to how far along with the print I am, but it's always there. Will things work out or am I going to screw up? Will the registration come together? Will the colours work? That sort of stuff. It was no different today and those same little fears all came and went as I inked up the block.

The worries were all for naught because it was pure pleasure printing today. But then I love printing with Daniel Smith black ink. I probably don't use it nearly enough. And each time I do, I always think I should do just a black and white print and then, distracted by the lure of colour, I don't. The DS black ink is rich and smooth and glossy and everything else an ink should be.

Anyway, Ta Da, block one of my nursery rhyme series is now finished and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

One little spider
At first light of day,
Spins a fine web
to catch her prey.

(Reduction Linocut, 7.5 x 9 inches)

Rainy days and Mondays and Happy Printing

2011-01-24T17:11:00.000-08:00

There's something really wonderful about getting a day off on what's normally a work day. Today was the first Monday of my new every-third-Monday-off schedule and boy did I revel in it! Roland at work, Nora in classes, and just me and the dog hanging out at home, watching the rain hammer the sidewalks outside and glad not to have to be out there.

Not to waste a fine opportunity, I got two colours down on the spider print this weekend. One yesterday and one today. First, yellow...

...and then this one. Sort of a dusty rose?

I used a mask for the second colour but it would have been too complicated to use one for the first, so I'm hoping there are no registration issues when I add the next and final colour. I want those spiderweb lines nice and thin please.

Now I just have to very diligent, ignore the call of the latest of the Jane Austen novels I'm strolling my way through (three down and three left to go), and spend at least some time each night working on the block so it's print-ready for Sunday.

Bumpy Beginnings to the Year's First Print

2011-01-16T21:53:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like kicking off the new year with a bout of the stomach flu. Thank God for all that positive spirit I entered this year with. Indeed, no sooner did I finish updating my website, adding some of my latest work to Etsy, and begin working on my nursery rhyme block, mentally at least, than I got sideswiped by the flu bug. As if I already didn't have little enough time to work on my prints without this past week's forced and unexpected inertia.

Four days in bed, one rough day back at work, and three days trying to catch up. On the plus side, I was, a couple of days before I got sick, considering doing some kind of cleansing purge to balance out the effects of our over-indulging through the Christmas holidays. No need for that now. I'm definitely cleaned right out although I'm not sure this would have been my choice for how to go about it.

Anyway, I was finally back at 'er last night, in a carving frenzy, determined to get the first stage of the block cleared so I could print today. I often wonder how long it takes other people to carve their blocks. It is, in fact, one the things I'm most curious about. Do other people take as long as I do? Because I tend to work slowly. Specially when there are things like thin spider web bits to work around. This little bit bellow, for example. It took forever.

But I did get it all done. At 11:00 last night and only then did we go and start watching our regular Saturday night movie, so my goal of not always throwing off my sleep schedule on weekends was, yet again, postponed until next week.

This morning we got up reasonably early, given we were up until 1:30, and headed over to Granville Island to see my Sand Dollar print, in the Malaspina member show, hanging on the wall. High time too; today was the last day so I was glad to get a chance to finally see all the great work on display.

Then, after the show, home to print. At last. There's not much to see yet, as usual with the first colour down, but I'm sure pleased to see prints hanging on the drying rack again.

Welcoming A New Decade

2011-01-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

I know I'm not alone in seeing the start of each new year as a clean slate. And this time, at the beginning of a new decade, the slate is even bigger. I've been thinking back on all the things that have happened in this last ten years and it just blows my mind. It seems there's been so much:

We bought our house and built a garden.
Nora grew up.
My parents, seemingly invincible, accomplished, and so very capable, got old and turned into children again.
I began my involvement with printmaking.
I taught myself HTML and built my website, and learned all about GIMP and Photoshop.
We traveled to the Czech Republic and to Disneyland.
I worked for the Vancouver Olympics.
We moved away from eating meat (again) and I learned how to make awesome bread, made my own yogurt and my own cheese.
I learned how to kayak. Sort of.
I finally read War and Peace.

And there are a million other small things that left their mark, forgotten for now but still important. Seems to me that looking back at such a list of summits, except for the parents getting old part, makes it very easy to get charged up for this next year and decade. There are already a few goals I've set out for myself, you know, the usual ones (strengthen the body and mind etc.) but otherwise, the door is open and I think I'm ready.

In that frame of mind, I move to my next print. Years ago, before Nora grew up and when she was still a little tot, I wrote a children's book. I worked only part time in those days so each week she and I would head over to the library for story time. We always came home with a huge pile of books, at least one for each night of the week until next story time, and we read them all. Some were good, some were not so much. Still, I got a pretty good idea of what was out there and what seemed to appeal to her and I wrote my own.

It was going to be a book of twelve rhymes with illustrations to go with them. I got as far as writing the rhymes, doing up all the thumbnails for my pictures, and drawing four of them to size. Then I stopped. Why? I don't know. I was taking a couple of university courses back then too, and learning how to knit, and making all of Nora's clothes and Roland's shirts. It could be there was just too much to deal with. Whatever the reason, the book sat undone.

But never say never. After all this time, 16 years maybe, I've come back to it. Just for the hell of it. Just to see if I can finish it now. And maybe the illustrations will work better as prints than they ever would have as watercolours or pencil crayon drawings or whatever medium I was thinking of at that time. The slate is clean.

I've reworked my first image, transferred it over to the block,

and spent yesterday afternoon playing with Photoshop to work out my colours.

For obvious reasons I'm leaning toward the second version. But I haven't started carving because I still haven't totally made up my mind about it. I do know I want to keep it much simpler, no more than four colours per image. Ha, famous last words. I'll need to take this next week to think about it more.

Visions of Sugarplums?

2010-12-20T22:34:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not printing, or sketching, or, let's be honest, even thinking about it much these days. I'm swept up in a whirlwind of pre-Christmas preparations and, although we're once again doing our best to avoid the commercial frenzy and we're not running around shopping, there are still many things to be done.

My idea of the ideal Christmas doesn't change much from year to year. For me it's all about creating an atmosphere of sanctuary: music, family, some special food treats to share. And it's also about celebrating tradition. It's much too easy these days to get caught up with modern toys and conveniences and I won't, and can't, pretend I don't like all the new technology available to me: my iPod, my computer, my Blackberry. But it's also important to me to step back from these modern things, and turn my hands to some type of timeworn ritual that goes back further than I can remember.

Christmas baking is like that. I tell myself each year I'm not going to bake anymore. All those cookies are fattening, making them is time consuming, I could be doing other things. And yet each year, at the last minute usually, I break down again and tie on my apron, turn on the CD of old Czech Christmas folk carols, and get busy. The music sends me back to the days when my mother and I stood side by side baking, listening to the carols (and singing along), turning to recipes older than either one of us.

This year, my mother's forgotten how to bake. She sits on the couch watching TV, only vaguely aware Christmas is almost here. This year it was Nora and I who stood side by side and baked to the sound of Czech folk carols which she, of course, didn't understand a word of but it didn't matter. It's all about the ritual. About honouring that ritual and about bringing it forward to bloom into something new.

I think we did pretty well too. Here's some of the cookies we made:

Bear Paws in the making...

and Bear Paws finished

Butter Cookies with Home Made Jam

Little Moors

Coconut Puffs

Anyway, whatever your tradition for this time of year is, I wish you and yours a splendid, peaceful, and holy Christmas (whatever your idea of "holy" may be). Thanks for dropping in to visit.

It's Beginning to Feel a Little Like Christmas

2010-12-12T22:58:00.000-08:00

So here we are, less than two weeks before Christmas, and I'm trying to summon up some kind of positive "Christmassy" emotion. Each year it seems to get harder. Today I played carols and Nora and I baked Christmas cookies and that helped.

Before that, Roland and I went out into the pouring rain and bought our tree for this year: a little potted fir, barely four feet tall and on the sparse side, but it's alive and that feels right somehow. Plus it's better for the environment.

I also finished up some cards so I guess I need to get it together and send them out, before it's too late.

They're very simple, I carved the image out of a piece of Staedtler mastercarve a couple of weeks ago after I talked myself into making them. I wasn't going to bother with it this year, I didn't feel inspired to it really. But I also knew that, after years of sending out hand-made cards, I'd never feel right about going back to store bought ones. Oh the motivating power of guilt...

Closing Up 2010

2010-12-05T22:37:00.000-08:00

It maybe just a little premature, with three weeks left to go before this old year is done, but I'm already, in a few odd ways, starting to roll up the carpets and close the shutters. Figuratively speaking. First, I finished the last print of this year. I'm calling it Coquihalla Autumn, in honour of the Coquihalla Highway and the surrounding scenery we drove through a couple of months ago.

This is how the print looked last week, with a new layer of green:

This week I added the last three colours, in a mad race to completion before I turn to Christmas baking and card making and all the rest of the pre-Christmas mayhem.

On the glass:

On the block:

On the print:

Coquihalla Autumn

8 x 9.5 inches

Rising Stonehenge paper & Daniel Smith water soluble inks

But, along with finishing the print, this Friday I closed the door on another project. Tomorrow morning, in my non-printmaking life, I start a brand new job. After almost four years, three of which were spent at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics unit, I say so long to the RCMP and the boys (and girls) in red serge. Eight months in the regular police environment(i.e. non-Olympic safety-focused) made me realize I'm not cut out for routine police work. I'm heading downtown to the Department of Justice, to a less crime-centric environment and the butterflies are beginning to stir inside my stomach already.

A good way to end the year I think.

To Print or Not to Print...

2010-11-21T20:58:00.000-08:00

Last night I faced one of those tough little decisions life sometimes tosses at us. The ones where we have to choose between doing something we know we should do and doing what we want to do instead. My choice: to print the next colour of the print (so I could do an extra colour today and get ahead a bit), or not to print, sit and read my book, and push the completion of this print that much closer to Christmas which, really, isn't all that far away. One look at the image below will clear up any doubts on how that one ended.

As I've mentioned before, my normal routine, dictated by all the other stuff going on, is to carve on Saturday nights and print on Sundays. But this week things got shuffled around because I'm contributing my Sand Dollar print to the annual Malaspina members' show and, between framing it and taking it over to the gallery, I wasn't sure I'd have the time to print today. So I planned to print last night and worked to get the block ready early. I had it all mapped out: pull a colour last night, deliver my print to the gallery early today, and possibly even print another layer this afternoon thereby gaining a week and moving ahead nicely.

Then last night rolled around and suddenly the thought of hauling all my printmaking paraphernalia to the kitchen, and getting it all set up for printing, held zero appeal. I got tired just imagining it. Probably because, having spent the day helping R shovel snow (yup, first snow fall of the year here), and doing housework and three loads of laundry, and the week's grocery shopping, I was ready to crawl into a corner with my book and a cup of coffee. I just didn't feel like printing. And, although sometimes I push myself to work when I'm not totally into it and then get into the flow of it and get lots accomplished, last night didn't have that type of vibe.

So, sporting the new layer added today, the print doesn't look much different from the way it did last time because the colour I added in isn't doesn't offer much contrast to the previous one.

On the other hand, there's all that much more anticipation for the next one which will, most definitely, change things up.

Printmaking Memory Games

2010-11-11T22:11:00.000-08:00

Last month, for our Canadian Thanksgiving, R and I drove to Kelowna ("the gateway to BC's interior") to visit with R's family. On the way back, driving through spectacular landscape, I got the inspiration for my next print. We didn't have the camera, we were too preoccupied with other things when we left home to even think of it, and then suddenly there we were, winding our way through a veritable autumn tapestry: gold-leafed birches, grassy rolling slopes, dark pines. All I could do was to try and burn the images into my memory until I got home and sketched them out.

And, I made those sketches almost as soon as we got home. Except I don't have a photographic memory. Far from it actually, so I remembered the colours and shapes but lost the details and my sketches totally reflected this. Yet, oddly, I liked what I'd drawn. I decided to go with it, base the next print on it anyway, and keep the image very stylized. I reworked my initial thumbnails a little more and came up with a very simple larger drawing.

The colours are totally off, I'm limited by my selection of markers, but it gives me a good idea of the layout and that's really all I need.

I printed three colours so far; I even managed to do two on the same day:

The first three colours look like this:

I used a strip of cellophane to mask the area in the middle of the block after I inked it. As you can see from the photo below, the mask allowed for some sloppiness in inking the block past the area I was printing. The cellophane stuck nicely to the ink on the block and made a great barrier between ink and paper.

So far, so good. I'm using Daniel Smith water-soluble inks and Rising Stonehenge paper for this one.

Sand Dollar Print Finished

2010-10-31T22:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight I feel as if I'm writing this post in a war zone. The air outside is thick with smoke and the sound of all the fireworks, one minor explosion on the heels of another for the last couple of hours, has sent the dog cowering into the darkest corner below my work desk. Halloween. The little kids have all come and gone and now the rowdies are out. Lots of them tonight even though it's raining. A good night to be indoors.

I've now finished the last two colours of my Sand Dollar print and have, mentally anyway, moved onto the next project already. I've read about other artists suffering from creative block but, so far anyway, this isn't something I've yet gone through. For me, it's the opposite. The amount of time I have for printmaking is well outweighed by the volume of ideas for all the prints I want to make. Generally, by the time I'm nearing the end of one print, my mind is already racing with ideas for the next one. I guess that's a good thing except that sometime it seems as if I'll never have enough time to do everything I still want to do.

Anyway, here is the second to last stage:

And here's the print with the last colour added in:

Sand Dollar - 8" x 9.5"

I had to restrain myself from not adding in a stronger darker colour still, that's usually the norm for me, but I really wanted to keep the tones muted this time. So far, I'm not regretting the decision to stop here.

When Art Becomes Mental

2010-10-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is what you might call a post between posts because I don't have any pictures to show and I haven't made any progress on the print. But I've been doing some thinking, for a while now, about what art is and what role artists should have in society and I've decided to throw the topic out into the unknown to see if anyone will offer up some opinions.

It sort of started with a book on art theory called, appropriately enough, Art Theory, A Very Short Introduction, by Cynthia Freeland. I picked it up at a university book store I stopped in about a month ago. In the author's own words it's "a book about what art is, what it means, and why we value it" and it looks at the various social and cultural influences on art now, and through history.

Wasting no time, the very first chapter addresses the work of a number of contemporary artists who, for various reasons, use blood, urine, semen...well you get the idea...to produce their artwork. Not surprisingly, their work has caused no small controversy and thereby gained notoriety and thereby, what else, a place in the galleries. It's "important" work. Yet when I read about it, I couldn't help asking the cliche question: is it art? Which of course leads to the other age-old question: what is art? In my view, and it might be a simplistic one, art is the expression of something within the artist's soul... a way of looking at the world or at something he/she has such a strong internal feeling for, that it absolutely has to be expressed externally.

That said, I'd better point out that I recognize that great art doesn't have to be beautiful or even necessarily easy to look at. Many artists have used their medium in powerful ways to depict and focus on brutalities and horrors in hopes of affecting some kind of social change. So my instinctive distaste at the idea of someone using feces as a medium is not based on a concept that art has to conform to some aesthetic ideal. Yet I have a hard time seeing such "artwork" as anything but an attempt at shock for shock's sake. And I find that much of contemporary "serious" art is, at least in part, like that.

An article in some art magazine I read last year was captioned "15 Artists Whose Work You HAVE to Know", or something like that. There was a short blurb about each of the 15. Without exception, the work of every single one of them was, in my eyes, dreadful. It was all mostly stark black and white, jagged lines and scribbles, and no seeming balance, harmony, flow, or anything else that might lead me look at the work again. It seemed fake.

My father is an abstract artist who had, as I was growing up, many sculptors and painters as friends. I went to my first modern art opening when I was 12. Point being, I love good abstract art. But I wouldn't hang the work of the 15 people showcased in that magazine article on my walls if they paid me to do it. And I can't help wondering: have we, as a society, become so complacent in our approach to art that we have to be jarred out this complacency through shock? Through a visual defibrillator?

It seems to me that "body fluid art" or an installation of dead rabbits hanging from trees and decomposing, or a canvas depicting nothing but visual noise, is much too cerebral to come from the soul. It's the work of someone thinking up a method for making a statement rather than making that statement as a response to some internal feeling or conviction.

I'm also listening to Alan Watts and, in particular, his Out of Your Mind recordings. Among the other though-provoking stuff he talks about, he poses the question: is the role of the artist to critique, or to reveal? The recordings were made during the 60's so around the time of the pop culture art movement. I get the impression he didn't much care for it, though I guess that's neither here nor there. The question is still an interesting one. Should artists critique or should they reveal?

I actually think it's possible to do both, that an art work can reveal something soul-stirring about the human condition or the world itself and still critique issues that need be brought to light. I can think of a couple of examples of printmakers who do just that. But, if I could only choose one of the two, I'd go for the second one. Show me something new, or something old in a new light. Surely there's more growth inherent in a revelation than there is in a criticism? At least that's my take on it.

What's yours?

Sand Dollar Print: Back at It

2010-10-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the two separate halves of my life, the creative one and the non-creative working one, flow together nicely and there's balance. And then again sometimes they don't and I feel like I'm living in two worlds that are miles apart. The last couple of weeks were an example of the "sometimes not" scenario as, between a weekend out of town, a three-day course for work, and all the other regular stuff that sucks up time, the days whizzed by with no room for printmaking.

It sure is tough to pick up a block left untouched for a couple of weeks and begin carving it again, just as if there were no interruption. It always seems to take so much more thinking just to figure out what the next step will be.

I'm still not wholly on top of things and it was almost looking like I might not get to print even today but, somehow, I managed to catch up and added the fourth colour after all. With that, the sand dollar part of the print is done. I teetered and tottered between leaving the print be after the last time and going forward as per original idea. The temptation to call it done definitely was there, made all that much stronger when I realized I wasn't the only one liking the subtlety after colour three. But, in the end...

At this point, the top and bottom areas of the print are much stronger than I want them to end up and will need to be lightened. I considered masking them off for today's printing but finally chose not to go that route; I specifically want the lighter colours to go over this darker one.

Sand Dollar Print: Stage Three

2010-10-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love about relief printmaking is the lovely sculptural quality of the block as it's carved and shaped. I guess it could be argued that, since the whole point of the process is the print itself, the actual block is secondary. But sometimes the patterns and textures that emerge in the block as I'm carving it are so aesthetically appealing, I wish I could save the block and turn it into a separate art piece.

Like the block for this latest print. I've reached a stage where it's so very interesting just on its own. All those textures!

And here's how the print looks with the latest colour in:

It's beginning to look like something now...

The Darker Side of Art

2010-09-26T22:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, the world of art has it's shadows. Last night, for movie night, R and I watched The Counterfeiters. Set in a German concentration camp in the last few years of WWII, the film tells the story of a group of prisoners involved in the "largest forgery operation of all time". The men, printmakers and artists in their pre-concentration camp lives, were forced to make fake passports, birth certificates, and money: British pounds and American dollars.

The story came to light less than ten years ago, when one of the survivors of the operation decided to write a book about his time in the camp, in answer to a flood of neo-Nazi "holocaust denial" propaganda. He traveled around Europe, collected his evidence and wrote the book.

It was a sad and deep film and it really got me thinking about how fortunate most of us living in the "western world" really are. We don't have to grapple with the tough choices faced by the men in that Nazi printing shop. There's no one holding a gun to our heads as we create our art, as it suits us and according to the level of drive within us. Sure, we have our dark days where we question the quality and meaning and worth of the work we create. But that's minor stuff. In general, life is good.

Yet what if, as it happened to the artists in the film, our sane world unexpectedly went sideways and the only outlet for our talent would be as the means to an end we know is morally wrong? Could it be anything but soul-destroying to know your creativity is being used for the propagation of evil? It isn't a new story; artists living under political oppression still face such issues even while I take my own freedom for granted. It's so easy to forget just how lucky I am to have that freedom and sometimes it's good to have a dark sad film to serve as a reminder.

Anyway.

I continued work on my next print today which, as you may remember, is based on the sand dollar photo below.

I printed the first colour last week but there wasn't much to it so I held off on posting it. Below are the first and second colours:

I'm printing onto BFK Rives heavy weight and began with the Georgian oil paint and printmaking medium combo I rediscovered during my ink experiment. So far, the only draw-back is that, in N's words, our kitchen smells like pumpkin. Judging by the inflection in her voice, I don't think she likes it. It's true the paints have a distinctly different smell from my normal Daniel Smith inks which wasn't as noticeable during the experiment because I only used this mixture for four prints. Now there's twelve of them so it's much more potent. Funny, I don't remember that from before. On the other hand, it is pumpkin season right?

Ink Test: Final

2010-09-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

The final phase of this test, a dark brown layer (not very visible in the top one of the three images below), played out true to the preceding ones. Meaning there were no problems with the ink, not at the beginning and not now, at the end. The three finished prints look like this (the print size is 5" x 7"):

Daniel Smith (water soluble):

Daniel Smith (oil relief ink):

Georgian Oil Paint and Printmaking Medium:

Even now, with all three done, I can't honestly say which I like better: the more translucent version or the stronger, opaque one. There's something to be said for both and my re-discovery of oil paints as a printing medium is definitely one of the pluses that emerged from this exercise.

That said, what about the ink issues that led me to this test to begin with? Well, I'm guessing it's pretty safe to say that, since I encountered none of those same issues throughout the testing, the ink is not the problem. And, if it's not the ink, then the only other variable is the paper. Both of the two prints I was unhappy with were printed on machine-made Japanase Masa paper. I'd only used it for one-colour prints and watercolour work before, but specifically chose it for the folksy florals because I thought the fibers would be well-suited to them and would give the impression of linen.

But I didn't have any Masa left so I didn't use it for my ink test and, instead, chose some remnants of BFK Rives, my absolute favourite paper to work with. Given my results with these test prints, it's pretty obvious the Masa is not as well suited to multi-colour reductions as the Rives is. Or maybe it's just not as well suited to reductions done with the heavier DS inks. Maybe, if I'd used the lighter-weight oil paint/printmaking medium mix on the Masa it might have behaved differently. Hmmm, something to test in the future I suppose. For now, I took advantage of a sale Daniel Smith was having and ordered some more Rives. It should get here just in time for me to start on my sand dollar print next week.

Ink Test Part III: Home Stretch

2010-09-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

A combination of long weekend and benign work schedule has blessed me with enough time to really get ahead with my experiment. I printed colour three yesterday. I'm beginning to suspect this is one of those Murphy's law situations. You know, like when your car is making a freaky noise it's not supposed to make but then stops making it as soon as whoever you've asked to check it out takes it for a drive? Or when the computer at work keeps going insane and doing weird things but then stops the minute the IT guy sits down in front of it?

This is what's happening with this test because here I am, colour three down, and there are no issues. None. No uneven coverage, no areas where the ink looks thicker than elsewhere, nothing. Of course, this is really a good thing because I don't have to abandon the ink I've become used to. But it's also one of those head-scratching things I really want to figure out. Actually, I'm beginning to have some ideas on what may have been the problem with the last two prints I did but I won't get into that until I have this print finished, next week. I figure I'll know for sure then, maybe.

For now, onto the results for colour three. The interesting thing is how even slight changes in the colours of earlier layers can affect those added on top. This time I was pretty successful in getting a close colour match in all three inks and, thought the print results may make it hard to believe, the third colour for all three variations was a blood red/maroon very similar to this:

Yet, despite my careful colour mixing, the three prints turned out hugely different from each other.

Daniel Smith (water soluble):

My ink was maroon on the inking plate and maroon on the block. But here, added over the preceding two colours it looks brown. Plus, the petals now look less gold and more ochre than they did before.

Daniel Smith (oil relief ink)

Here, the orange first layer obviously affects the third and, though still not as maroon as the ink was on the inking plate, it's definitely redder when printed and clearly redder than in my first version.

Georgian Oil Paint and Printmaking Medium

And a totally different result here. In this case the ink mixture's inherent translucent nature factors in but, again, the end colour in the print is more brown than red.

Very cool. Normally, when I do my reductions, I just play around with my inks and take test prints until I get the colour I'm after. It usually works pretty well although there were a couple of times I struggled to get just the right colour. But I know there's a science behind it all, I learned colour theory in university, years ago. This was a nice refresher course and great to see the differences, side by side. I'm totally psyched for next weekend now.

Ink Test Part II

2010-09-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

Second colour down on my test print and all is well. In fact I'm loving the results even though they aren't necessarily what I expected. Getting right to it, here's how colour two is shaping up.

Daniel Smith (water soluble):

I rolled out my ink very thinly, inked the block in as thin a layer as I could getaway with, and it turned out well. Nice even coverage and, so far, still OK.

Daniel Smith (oil relief ink)

This was my first surprise of the day. Although the traditional relief ink has a slightly velvetier texture and rolls out a little more smoothly (as I already noticed with colour one), the end result is virtually indistinguishable from the one printed with water-soluble ink. I'm not sure why, but I was expecting to see a noticeable difference and there really isn't any. Apart from the slight variation in colour, both inks produced an identical layer: same opacity, same eggshell sheen.

Of course, if I really think about this, it makes sense. Even though one ink is water-soluble and the other isn't, they're both oil based so they likely have similar compositions.

Georgian Oil Paint and Printmaking Medium

As with colour one, the most significant differences in the inks were obvious here. And no, I don't mean the colour. That's just because I didn't have enough blue, unfortunately, so mixing a green comparable to the others wasn't an option. I had to settle for using the olive green included in my set of oil paints and, even though I added what blue I had left, it didn't alter the hue much.

Anyway, the main difference with this oil paint/modifier mixture was the degree of coverage. This "ink" is significantly less opaque, both on the inking plate and, really noticeable now in layer two, on the print itself. It's slightly trickier to work with, I had to work harder to roll out an even layer, but it actually turned out fine on the print itself.

As I've said, I have used this mixture for a number of prints in the past. But this was several years ago and I forgot what working with them was like. So now, the big surprise is how much I like the result. I'm not sure if the above close-up shows it well but this ink mixture has some of the translucent quality of watercolour. That could have it's advantages, particularly if used along with the stronger DS inks.

Yes, you can add transparent medium to the Dan Smith inks and I use it on a regular basis. But the texture of the DS transparent medium is more rubbery somehow and, even though it does give the DS inks a certain transparency, the end product is not the same as here. This ink mixture is oil based yet has an appearance similar to the water-based inks used in Moku Hanga. It's softer.

I suspect that in a reduction of several layers I'd have to bring in the DS ink for those final colours because this mixture wouldn't cover as well. But I'm very curious about combining the two mediums in the same print now.

The final surprise of the day was with the clean-up. The last time I used traditional oil inks I used paint thinner. This time I decided to try oil and, what do you know, it worked. I had some Mineral oil on hand so I used it to wipe both inking plate and brayer and it did a fantastic job. No terrible smell, no dry finger tips. A bit of soap and water after that and everything is good to go for next time.

Battle of the Inks

2010-08-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

"In the field of opportunity it's plowing time again,
there ain't no way of knowing
where these seeds will rise or when...."

(Neil Young)

I'm conducting an experiment. I've become dissatisfied with my trusted Daniel Smith water soluble relief ink. I've used this ink almost exclusively for several years now and, although it's most definitely a quality ink and has been excellent to work with for most of my scenic reductions (where the many ink layers printed over each other produce an interesting almost "painterly" effect), this is not what I want in the graphic florals I'm playing with now.

Maybe I'm being overly critical. Or maybe my expectations are unrealistic. But what if I really am using the wrong type of ink for what I want to achieve? Whatever the reason, in my last two prints the ink frustrated the hell out of me. Specifically, while the first layer of each print was lovely and smooth, as the colours built up, even though I applied the ink in very light layers, the coverage became less consistent. It was patchy in some areas and too thick in others and I couldn't get the clean crisp lines I want.

I once met a local printmaker who used a letter press and rubber-based inks to create prints with crisp lines and colours so rich they glowed. I don't have a letter press and I'm not sure if rubber-based inks are the answer for me but I still want to get as close to that printmaker's results as I can. So, even though the block for my sand dollar print is ready to go, I've decided to hold off and try figure out some of my ink issues first.

I still have a set of Daniel Smith traditional oil relief inks, originally abandoned because clean-up is more trouble than it is with the water-soluble ones, and I also have a set of Georgian oil paints and a tube of Georgian printmaking medium (meant to turn oil paints into a medium suitable to printmaking). I want to see exactly how the three compare. I've done up a small design for a simple four-colour reduction and am testing all three inks in an edition of four prints for each. I began yesterday.

Keeping in mind that my irritations never surfaced in printing the first colour, I got off to a great start. The hardest thing was getting the tops off the tubes of ink and oil paint that's been sitting around, albeit wrapped well in plastic and Tupperware, for a few years now. Once I managed to do that, and thank God for that old metal nutcracker hiding at the bottom of the utensil drawer (saved me from using my teeth!) the next hardest was mixing up the same colour in three different mediums. Pretty clear from the pictures below how that one went. Other than that, no real issues. Still, some slight differences emerged even at this natal stage.

Daniel Smith (water soluble):

I started with this ink simply because it's easier to go from a water clean up ink to a more traditional oil ink. As I already said, no issues here. The ink rolled out in a nice even layer and covered well.

Daniel Smith (oil relief ink)

No, the colour's not quite the same. A bit too much red. That's what I get for leaving ink sitting around for so long that it positively gushes forth once the cap is off. Beyond this, this ink behaved much like its water soluble cousin but with a slight difference: while I always ink up my block by rolling out very thin layers of ink over each other until the whole thing is evenly covered, this ink seemed to roll out just a little more smoothly and with just a little less effort.

Georgian Oil Paint and Printmaking Medium

One of the things that became clear to me very early on is that good printmaking ink is not the easiest thing to come by. Not in Canada anyway. Even in a city the size of Vancouver, boasting several good art supply stores, getting professional grade printmaking ink locally is impossible. Speedball dominates the store shelves and the good stuff is only available from the States usually for what can be a hefty shipping fee. So, before I decided to go that route, a locally available medium that promised to make oil paint suitable for printmaking held a lot of appeal. Oil paints are everywhere, come in a plethora of colours, and are reasonably inexpensive.

I picked up a tube of the medium and I did a number of simple prints using modified oil paints. It worked ok, was better than Speedball, but curiosity still nagged. So much so that I finally took advantage of a trip we made to Seattle, visited a Daniel Smith store, got some of their ink and that's been the end of that story until now. Oil paints forgotten. Now, since I'm going to the trouble of experimenting, it's worth including them in my side-by-side comparison.

Anyway, given this was the oddest of the three mediums I'm testing, I wasn't surprised to find differences between it and the other two. First, the consistency of the oil paint/medium mixture was much less viscous. And, whereas both DS inks completely covered the glass inking-up plate (i.e. they were opaque) this mixture was slipperier and significantly more transparent so I thought I may have mixed it wrong and wasn't expecting much coverage. Surprisingly, once printed, the colour came through well enough. The real "tell" will come in the next layers but, for now, so far so good.

Next weekend, part two.

Wealth With Half a Dollar...

2010-08-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, a regular part of my summer vacations, after we came to Canada, were the trips of discovery my parents and I took together. Each year, for eight years or so, we packed up the car with camping gear and headed off for two or three weeks, each year to a different part of the States or Canada. We spent the days driving, stopping randomly at worthy points of interest, and spent each night in a different place.

Over a series of successive summers we covered the deep south, the East Coast, the mid-west, the west coast, and northern BC up to Alaska. Throughout those years, we picked up a lot of memories and a lot of random souvenirs: an Aunt Jemima dinner bell from Louisiana, a small Navajo mat from a Stuckey's (of all places) in Texas, a turquoise and silver ring from New Mexico.

Clearly, judging from the plethora of gift shops in most tourist places, most travelers have the urge to pick up little mementos of the trips they take, things that will, in future years when the traveling is done, bring back the sense of the place they came from. Even now, all grown up, I still fall prey to the souvenir urge. I still want to bring back that special "something" from our excursions although, these days, it's rare those special somethings come from any store.

For example, these are my souvenirs from our trip to the Oregon coast:

Two large mussel shells from the beach at Depoe Bay (the photo doesn't do full justice to the beautiful blue glints inside)
A speckled palm-friendly rock from the beach at Oceanside
The fragment of a sand dollar from the beach at Seaside

The sand dollar is my favourite. First of all because of all the others scattered around on the sand, this one was the only one that had, still, kept it's darker gray colouring. All the others had already faded out and the markings were harder to see. Second, because of the markings. They're like tree branches or arteries or something and really appeal to me.

In fact, I'm totally fascinated by the thing. Such a small thing, yet the intricacy of design is amazing!

I want to try to capture it so I've done a couple of sketches:

in pen,

and in pencil crayon.

But the true test will be whether or not I can, successfully, turn it into a relief print. Is it even possible to accurately transfer that fantastic texture to relief without having to make the print a giant one?

I should really be working on the block I have ready from a couple of months ago, another floral. But I wasn't happy at all with the way my last one turned out so here I am, turning my attention to something that might prove even more frustrating. Then again, maybe not. That's always the gamble and the pull, isn't it?

Oregon Trails

2010-08-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

The last day of our vacation for this year has come and gone. Now, the usual melancholy slowly starts to set in: there was so much more I wanted to accomplish but didn't. I didn't, for example, do one lick of work on anything even remotely related to printmaking. But then, I knew this wasn't going to be that kind of vacation.

First, there was the living room renovation. And after this, because it wouldn't have been much of a vacation if we didn't go on at least a small adventure, we headed down to the Oregon Coast for a taste of sea air. Yes, we have sea air, lots of it, right here in Vancouver. But Vancouver's sea air is different. With Vancouver Island as a barrier between Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean, our coastline is a tamer one by far.

This means that Vancouverites who want to experience the true ocean, and the raw power of waves full of the momentum picked up on route from Japan, either take a ferry to the west coast of the Island or drive to the Oregon coast. We've already done the Vancouver Island trip so this time it was Oregon's turn.

We packed our camp chairs, bathing suits, sunscreen, and dreams of relaxing by the edge of the Pacific somewhere, reading and sketching, and headed south. We figured on, roughly, a ten hour drive to Depoe Bay, where we were spending the first night, so we endured the drive along the main highway for the first part of the trip, just to get some mileage behind us. Then, about half way down, we veered off to the scenic route and, within the hour, were rewarded by the first glimpses of the sea:

Obvious from the above photo, the sun didn't choose to come along with us. It must have decided to stay behind in BC because within minutes of crossing the border into the States we were engulfed in fog. And the fog followed us for the rest of the day, changing into clouds and back again, becoming more and more dramatic the further we got into Oregon. By the time we reached Depoe Bay, at around 6:00, I was wondering how much use I'd be making of the tank tops, summer skirts, and sunscreen I packed. Suddenly, the fireplace that came with the room, which I initially took for a weird marketing ploy, began to make sense.

As we hauled our stuff into the room the winds whipped around us with full maritime force and it looked like it might rain. We took it in stride. After all, we're hardened British Columbians, weaned on clouds and rain. Given it's been cloudy on all but one of our camping vacations, we weren't about to get discouraged no matter how much wind was trying to shove us around. We just layered up in all of our long-sleeved stuff, I traded my gauzy skirt for long pants, and off we went to explore the hotel's semi-private beach.

The wind, even stronger at water's edge, howled around us and it was so cold I was sure I could see my breath. But it was magnificent. Buoyed on by thoughts of the cozy supper of bread, fruit and cheese and a bottle of Marshal Foch waiting in our room (along with that fireplace), we clambered over rocks, picked sea shells, and soaked in the energy of the place. It was such a rush to be there, in the nearing dusk and all alone, I doubt a clear blue sky could have added anything.

Day 2. We drove further south to Newport, a pretty little seaside town of gallery shops and restaurants.

There, incredibly, the fog lifted and the suddenly the day was warm and felt like summer. The sun even followed us for the rest of the afternoon and on our drive north again, this time to Oceanside, for our second night. But just as we were beginning to get used to our sun glasses, we turned a corner, got closer to the open sea I guess, and we were back under fog and clouds.

By the time we found our hotel, perched on it's cliff, the sky was dark and ominous again. Our room, sans fireplace and much more "rustic" (and I'm being polite here), had a million dollar view. Here's what we saw from the deck:

And these are pictures from the beach:

Day 3. We began our return drive back up the coast. First, a small detour to visit a legendary tree hidden inside a beautiful forest:

And this is the Octopus Tree, so named because it has no central trunk; it's branches seem to grow right from the ground:

A couple of last looks at the soul-stirring scenery:

Then off to our last tour stop and a total shift in atmosphere: Seaside. Still under hazy cloud, the air was warm and balmy here and the town was teeming with happy vacationers. This is a shot of a manicured canal section that runs through what seemed to be the main part of town but, really, Seaside's claim to fame is the new mile-long stretch of boardwalk along the ocean.

I didn't take any pictures of that boardwalk, even though we walked a good length of it. For us, the draw was the beach itself. It wasn't quite warm enough to swim but the temptation to get our toes wet was irresistible:

We walked and walked and the waves washed in over our feet and felt like renewal. So, while we never got that chance to sit in the sun and read and sketch, we both agreed, on that long haul back, that it really didn't matter.

And, although I'm feeling a little guilty that I didn't get to any printmaking this time around, I know it's also important to take a break from actually "doing" and feed the soul in other ways. It's all part of the creative process...

Working Vacation: Pass The Strawberry Slushie

2010-07-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

The joys of renovating! We've been on summer vacation for over a week but so far there hasn't been much down time. Busy with our "big" living room renovation it wasn't until this Sunday that we took a break and lounged around in our sunlit garden, sipping strawberry slushies spiked with Vodka, reading, and contemplating how good life is. The pictures still had to be hung at this point but we decided enough was enough and took advantage of a rare quiet afternoon, when none of our neighbours were mowing lawns, or pressure washing, or weed eating, or using some other noise making contraption.

It's funny how house repairs go, isn't it? Ever the optimist, though I know things generally take twice as long as you think they will, I somehow figured I was allowing for that and thought it was realistic to start on Saturday and expect to be done with everything by Thursday. This, even though the carpet installer was only scheduled for Thursday. And I was sure that even on days we'd be painting etc., we'd only have to work partial days with lots of free time to laugh and play, lounge around in our sunlit garden...

Crazy? It just didn't seem like the job was all that complicated really. I mean, how much is there to putting in new crown moldings, painting a ceiling and walls and three door frames and two doors, and putting in new carpeting? Easy right? Well...

Saturday and Sunday: to purge five boxes full of books and other "treasures" we've been hanging onto for no real reason, pack up everything else in the room and distribute it, judiciously, throughout the rest of the house
Monday (until 8 at night): deal with the crown molding and figure out how to make the tricky angle cuts and install it
Tuesday and Wednesday: mask, prime and paint the ceiling, walls, baseboards crown moldings, and doors
Thursday (until nearly midnight): get the carpet installed, touch up some minor dents made during the install, and buy and assemble a new wall unit
Friday: fill the new wall unit (artfully) with the books and stuff we decided to keep, during our pre-reno purge of same, and build a new CD cabinet that will match the wall unit and hold all of our CDs in one place
Saturday: make three separate trips to three separate stores to find the right stain for the CD cabinet and stain it to match the new wall unit
Sunday: install the CD cabinet, hook up the stereo and TV, and clean up the mess in the rest of the house
Monday (half a day): hang pictures

Plus, all the above activity was regularly interrupted by trips to General Paint: for primer (when the latex primer we had in the garage turned out be oil-based) and for more paint when one coat, even with primer underneath, didn't cover the paint we had on the walls before. And I'm not even going to get into the issues we had with finding a stain for the CD cabinet that would match the new wall unit.

But we got it all done at last and now something we've been talking about for a couple of years is done. Almost. R still needs to finish up the fireplace mantel but that won't happen for a couple of weeks. Now, with what time there's left, we're vacationing. Here's a couple of pictures:

We've even made room for some of my work on the walls. Before this, most of the wall space was taken up by my dad's work which is still there, but there's a bit less of it now.

As I said, the fireplace is still raw. It'll be trimmed in white with a dark mantle, to match the other dark pieces in the room. But, despite an unfinished fireplace, we're thrilled with how everything turned out. Even if it did take a little longer than I thought it would, and even if I didn't really get any time to do anything with my prints other than hanging some on the walls.

It's Not a Disappointment; It's an Opportunity

2010-07-11T21:43:00.000-07:00

I finished my Poppies print today and I'm not as happy with it as I could be.

No, it's not entirely dreadful or anything, I like the design and the way the colours came together, but it's just not what I envisioned and that's always frustrating. It's not a clean as I want and the edges, even though they're clean and sharp on the block, are ragged. I covered my ink issues etc. in last week's post so I'm not going to beat that drum again. I'll simply take it as an opportunity to figure out why things went a bit sideways with this print and work out a fix for next time.

I'll have a week or two of down time anyway; next weekend Saturday R and I are starting our much-discussed (and two years overdue) living room reno: new paint for the ceiling and walls, new crown molding, new carpet. The weekend will go to packing up everything in the living room and stuffing it into the bedroom so I don't expect I'll have time to print. That may just be a good thing. But I will have lots of time to think about things like printing ink and paper etc.

The Down Side of Recycling

2010-07-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

Though I didn't really think I'd be writing a follow-up to last week's post about good "old" stuff finding new life and purpose, my printing trials this week seem to call for a return to the same theme. Because this week I learned a different lesson: not all the stuff we save to use at "some time in the future" should be saved.

This last Thursday Canada celebrated it's birthday. For most of us, that meant an extra day off. For me, it was a day to stay up late the night before, sleep in till 8:30 (oh the decadence), take it easy, and, most importantly, print colour two of Poppies. All was good but the last part: the printing.

My next colour was a red and it just happened I had a little tub of maroon ink saved from some other print I did in the past. Ok, I'm not really sure when, specifically, but whatever. Proud of myself for my thrift, I figured I'd make use of it now. All I had to do was adjust the hue a bit, sprinkle in a few drops of my magic French linseed oil and I'd be good to go. Really, what could be simpler? Well...it turns out lots of things could be.

In sharp contrast to how my ink behaved last week, after I'd added the linseed oil, this time it just wasn't totally doing what it should be. I don't know why. It rolled out okay on my inking plate (and made the right kind of "smucking" sound), it looked good on the brayer, and it looked good on the block. The only place it didn't look all that good was on the print.

It just didn't go down as smoothly and evenly last week and my edges are not as "clean" as I want them. Not in a huge "toss the whole thing away and start again" sort of way but enough to cause some angst. The only thing I can think it might have been is the ink? Was it too old? It's possible right? I should have tossed it right? I think I probably should have.

Anyway, here's the print as it looked on Thursday:

OK, it looks pretty good and you're wondering what I'm going on about and maybe even thinking I'm one of those people who like to whine a lot. But this is one of the better prints (my ego will not allow me to show one of the worst ones) and, even here, if you look at the border lines up top you'll see what I mean. They're not as clean-looking as they were before I added in the red. I'm hoping it'll fix itself as I move forward, even after colour three, added today.

After today's printing, the red is still plaguing things somewhat. One thing I've come to rely on is that any ink mixed with white will usually cover the colour underneath it. Not so today, as per the red specks on the poppy heads. It may not necessarily be a detriment, in fact it may even end up looking kind of cool, but it's not what was supposed to happen, damn it!

And, once again, despite all my labours to prevent it, I had registration issues. It's another mystery why because it just didn't look like the paper was slipping or anything and the block was in exactly the same place as last week. So, I'm going to be positive and say the mis-registration adds a level on interest also, the same as the red speckles, but that doesn't eliminate the simple truth: it should NOT have happened. I have to have better control of that kind of thing. That means I'll be re-evaluating my registration method for the next print. For now, I find comfort in knowing that challenges and obstacles are always opportunities for growth if we can only learn to see them that way.

Junk or Treasure

2010-06-27T23:13:00.000-07:00

My parents, who share our house with us and live downstairs in their own suite, have major issues with throwing stuff away. They hang on to everything: bags and bags of other plastic bags, enough empty vitamin bottles to build a pyramid with, spent light bulbs and batteries, EVERYTHING. And I can sort of understand that. I'm a strong champion of the "reuse and recycle" philosophy and I hate waste. But, having witnessed how this philosophy can sometimes get out of hand, I do a bit of a self cross-examination whenever I'm deciding not to throw out something that "may come in handy one day". As I see it, the line between frugality and hoarding is a fine one.

Today, hanging onto stuff turned out to be a good thing. I was getting ready to print the first colour of my Poppies print and I'm using the same paper (Masa) I used for the Folk Floral. I had some problems with it the last time because of my registration method and ended up having to add pieces of masking tape to the back of the paper halfway through.

Now, having learned my lesson, I added reinforcement strips to the back of my printing paper before I even started printing. I was thrilled to finally have a use for some long strips of paper I had kicking around for what seemed like for ever, for just in case "I might need them". They were even the perfect length and, combined with some double-sided tape, saved me a chunk of time.

Unfortunately, as these things often go, the time I saved got lost in another way. There I was, feeling pretty good about how quickly I dealt with the paper issue, when I hit a wall with my ink. I'm using a brand new tube of yellow it's very stiff. I'm guessing it's old stock or something because it's more like etching ink than relief ink. Hard to mix, hard to roll up, and terrible to print with. I forged ahead, rolled it out on the block, and ran a couple of proofs but they were awful. The ink was so thick it filled in some of the carved-out areas and didn't transfer well. Worst of all, the print was rough around the edges, as if I'd used pastels or something. You can see it here:

The "gloppyness" and rough edges are particularly noticeable in this section here:

Arrrggh. Frustrated and annoyed, I knew I had to try thin my ink out a bit. I also knew that, even though it's a water clean-up ink it's still oil based, so the thinning agent had to be oil. Linseed oil came to mind pretty much right away and I headed off to the garage to hunt around for some. That's where I found this little bottle of gold:

Almost looks like perfume doesn't it? And it is French but it's actually a little bottle of linseed oil from a set of oil paints I bought for an art class in highschool. Highschool! Decades ago! So long ago I don't have the paints anymore and I sure as hell didn't remember I still had this oil but boy, was I ever glad I saved it all these years. A few drops and it totally conquered the stiff ink issue:

No more ragged edges:

Plus, the bottle is just the right size to fit into the bin I store my printing inks in. It can live there until the next time it's needed. Now the only question I have is, though I have no clue where the phrase "saving it for a rainy day" came from, is it a coincidence it was raining today?

Delighting in Distraction

2010-06-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

Ah, yeah, I missed doing my weekly post last Sunday so here I am, catching up. I actually began work on my new print last week Saturday night, as per custom, but didn't move forward as fast as I thought I would. After some mental coin-tossing I chose to start with the Poppies print and there's a fair bit of white space in the image. That means a lot of area to clear away before I can even print my first colour. I didn't have enough time on Saturday night to finish it all so no printing on Sunday and nothing to show.

But I made an agreement with myself some time ago not to treat my printmaking as a chore. Not to see it as something I absolutely HAVE to do or else. I don't ever want to get to the point where I'm working on a print because it's a must instead of because I love doing it. And so, even though I didn't get as much done last week as I planned, I didn't sweat it. I fully expected to catch up during the week last week and be ready for the first colour by today. And then, on that Sunday afternoon, I made a mistake.

Since I wasn't printing and had a chunk of non-designated time on my hands, I picked up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, and headed off into the garden and sunshine. It only took a couple of hours before I was totally sucked-in. For the rest of the week I blew off everything else I wasn't duty-bound to do and, nose buried in the novel, spent every free hour in Sweden. This, even though R and I saw the movie a few weeks ago so I pretty much knew what was coming up in the plot. I didn't even turn on the computer to check my emails the whole week. And, of course, I didn't work on my block at all. Didn't even glance at it until last night (I finished the book yesterday morning) when, again, I didn't have enough time to finish clearing all that white space so, once more, no printing. It sure was a good ride though.

Did I work on my block today? Well, not yet. But, I will be carving tonight still, at least for a little while, because I want to try out my newly adapted bench hook. Sometimes, after I've worked on a block for a few hours in a row, I get a sore lower neck from bending over the block. I read about someone having the same problem a while ago on Wetcanvas and the suggested solution was to angle the block up a bit. I thought it sounded like a great idea and then forgot about it until I saw Annie Bissett's blog post about her new studio. The table top easel she uses started me thinking again and I got R to come up with a modification to the bench hook he's built for me.

The whole thing used to sit flat on my work surface but now he's added an angled piece of wood underneath to raise it up about 3 inches.

It's definitely much more comfortable now. Funny how such a little thing can make such a difference. And now, no more excuses for not working, I'm off to carve...

2010-06-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

I've been busy on the sketches for my next two prints. As I said already, I like my last print so much I want to build on the same concept and, after two weeks of sketching and erasing and sketching some more, I've got two blocks ready to go.

The first one was easy; it's basically a cousin to the one I just finished, in a different colour scheme. I loved the green/gold stage of the last print and want to try it now as separate version.

The second print began as a fragment that came to me while I was falling asleep one night. I get that often, bits of images or ideas that come in the dark with me snug in bed and very reluctant to get up and write them down. That's what they say you're supposed to do, get up and write those ideas down. But do the people who actually do that have to get up as early as I do? I'm usually already pushing the limits of how late I stay up in relation to when I should really be getting to bed. That's why, usually, when the ideas come just as I get cocooned in my blankets, all I do is hope I'll still remember them in the morning. So far, it's been working out about 80/20 in my favour and I can live with that for now.

So the image for the third print in what I'm now, tentatively, beginning to think of as "the series", started as one of those night children and then went through a few changes. On paper, the first sketch looked like this:

It's loosely based on the lovely California poppies growing in abundance, like the weeds they are, randomly throughout the garden. I love them so I tend to leave them be but they're spreading and I'll probably have to tame them back a bit. Anyway. I finished the sketch and propped it up against the wall on my work surface and looked at it for a few days. I liked it, the poppy heads (the bit that came to me first) were almost exactly like I first saw them in my mind. But the actual poppies lack the graphic quality of my last print and I don't want to lose that. So along to version two:

I put this one on display and walked around it for a few days too and, again, I knew it wasn't what I'm after. I've managed to simplify the poppies and I'm happy with that part but, somehow, the image lacks life. It's got no flow; it's too static. One more time to the drawing pad. Version three:

Somehow, by bringing the two poppies closer together and putting them at a slight tilt, the rhythm between them has shifted and I got what I want so this is the version I'm going with. Sort of. The colours are wrong; I didn't have the right shade of marker and I didn't want to take the time needed for pencil crayons. And I didn't like the leaves so I traced over the sketch and simplified them significantly before I transferred the tracing to the block. But other than that it's the version I'm going with.

Here are my two blocks then, all ready for the chisels:

Now of course, the next dilemma is which one will I work on first?

Marketing Tips for Artists...OR...Marketing/Schmarketing

2010-05-31T22:01:00.000-07:00

The Chris Tyrell talk I mentioned last week, Marketing Strategies for Artists, was on this past Saturday. Seeing it as a great opportunity for getting some “trade secrets” from a man who's been actively involved in the art world for a couple of decades (as artist, curator, writer, teacher), I sacrificed a precious Saturday morning and drove an hour in the rain to take it in.

I wanted some practical ideas on how to make the unsavory part of the creative process, self-marketing, more appealing. More user-friendly. More "try this at home kids". Surely not too unreasonable an expectation from a talk on "marketing strategies" is it? Well, an hour and a bit and some personal anecdotes later, I was no wiser.

The man talked, and told some stories, and said some stuff that might sort of, loosely, be interpreted as advice on marketing strategies. But, ultimately, he said nothing new. Nothing that made me want to run home and start self-promoting. If anything, judging from some of the comments I heard around me, and the looks on people's faces, what he said was actually discouraging to a number of the people there.

Here are the main points he made:

You need to be creative in your marketing strategies.
It doesn't matter how good your work is (with a few exceptions); what really matters is how many people you know, how good your contact list is, and how well you use that list. You really don't need a lot of talent at all, just good contacts.
The art world today is a much different place than it used to be, traditional approaches are vanishing, and you'd better be computer savvy or you won't succeed.
Exhibitions in galleries are usually a waste of time and money and so is publicity.
There are too many artists. Most people who make art will not sell it.
Those people who do sell are people who have a good story behind who they are (i.e. a man who's huge success had more to do with his being a firefighter in "real" life than with his art itself).
Abstract, impressionistic work is impossible to sell.
People will buy your work if they feel indebted to you somehow so try to give something away for free and then call in the debt.

Ok now everyone, get out there and create something...

The thing is, all of the above is no doubt true. Abstract art is a bitch to sell; a lot of fantastic art will go unsold; the art world is changing and computers play a huge part so you'd better learn as much as you can about them; most artwork is sold to people the artist has some kind of relationship with; it sure helps to have some kind of story that sets you apart from all the others.

But I bet most of the 30 (plus) people who came to hear that talk on Saturday (many of them of a "certain age" and not super comfortable with the whole computer thing) already know all about the hurdles artists today face. That's why they came to the talk, hoping to hear the guy who wrote the book offer suggestions on how to get around those hurdles. They sure as hell didn't come there to be told: "Yeah, being an artist these days is tough isn't it? " And because that's essentially what was given, I left that talk more bummed out than inspired. I went away with: "Wow, that Chris Tyrell is clearly a better writer than a speaker".

Still, it's got me thinking. Was I expecting something unrealistic? Are there really any strategies for marketing beyond the obvious? Ultimately, if you want to sell your art you have to get out there, get to know as many people as you can, tell them about your work, engage them by telling a good story about it, and about yourself, and just keep at it. You have to learn how to be a "people person". I know that don't I? So did I maybe go to that talk because I was hoping for some kind of "cheat" around that? Or was the guy just a bad talker? Could he have given more?

I guess I'm not totally decided on the answer yet am I?

Prints, Plants, and Lint

2010-05-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

So here we are, another Victoria Day and another day to give thanks for the birth of a queen without whom we, in Canada anyway, would not have a long weekend. If nothing else, it gives all of us gardeners, and reluctant gardeners (me), a marker on the calender to denote the "official" day the veggies get planted. This is the BIG gardening weekend pretty much all across Canada I think and I, not wanting to mess with tradition, managed to get out there and plant some squashes and soy beans and broccoli. This, despite the weather which, a little cooler than normal, isn't necessarily cooperating with the whole BIG gardening weekend concept. But so be it...

Next, those of you in the Vancouver area may be interested in checking out the Maple Ridge Art Gallery next Saturday for a talk by Chris Tyrell, the author of Artist Survival Skills and a regular contributor to the Opus Newsletter. You can get more info here.

Last but not least, the folk floral is now complete and I'm happy, happy, happy with the way it turned out.

Folk Floral
Reduction Linocut - 7" x 8"

I've liked working on this print so much that I've got sketches done for two more floral-themed prints on the go. They still need colour so I can't show them yet but will next time. I have to hold off on starting on them for a week or so anyway; I'm getting ready to take some work into a fledgling co-op gallery just opened by a friend and I've been busy matting and framing.

And once again, as I always do when I'm framing, I can't help wondering: Why is it that those tiny specs of lint that get trapped in between the glass and the print never show up until after the whole frame is put together? Where do they come from? There's a lesson in there somewhere but I haven't quite figured out what it is yet.

Folk Floral Print Gets the Blues

2010-05-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

Today I don't have a lot of words so, a picture will have to be enough for this time round.

This is the second to last colour in the print (hopefully it does come across as blue on the computer screen). This then leaves a bold green for last; I'm really looking forward to seeing how it changes things again...

Making the Most of Mother's Day

2010-05-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

M is for May, and mother, and multifaceted, and marvelous, and...masking tape. It's been a great day so far but then, waking up to sunshine flooding the room is generally a good way to start things. We've had a couple of weeks of sort of iffy weather, cooler than normal for this time of year and rain almost every day, or at least for part of it. This weekend, warm, sunny and glorious, has been a welcome change. Specially since there was lots of work waiting in the garden.

I spent the whole of yesterday afternoon outside crawling around, weeding and monitoring the baby peas, lettuces, and chard happily growing in the new raised beds R built a month or so ago. And I added a couple more strawberry plants to the ones already in the planter. Last year, we had three strawberries. My mother ate one and the slugs got the rest so this year I'm hoping for a few more than that.

Today, I relaxed and enjoyed the fruit of all the labour we've put into the place in the nine years we've lived here. The garden is at it's most flamboyant this time of year, the rhododendrons are vying for colour supremacy, and the air is sweet with all the blooming things around. Not a bad view to have while printing either.

I came up with an idea for fixing the registration issues I was having last week i.e. the paper shifting in my hole-punch registration system as a result of it being a lighter weight. I taped pieces of masking tape over both sides of the holes I'd already punched in the paper. Yes, I could have taken a single strip of tape across the top on both sides but, and maybe I'm taking trying to be green to extremes here, I couldn't justify the waste.

Yeah, it was one of those fiddly and tedious sides of printmaking I'm glad not to deal with too often. It was made even more fiddly and tedious because, after I cut the 78 little pieces of tape, I actually had to use a hand-held single-hole puncher to re-punch the holes exactly where they already were. So, note to self, next time I use a lighter weight paper for a reduction print, the top edge needs to be reinforced with something stronger before punching the holes in.

The work paid off though. The tape did the trick and the paper stayed where it was supposed to so, for all but one print that was the most severely misregistered, today's colour pretty much hid last week's flaws. But then, red usually has a pretty powerful resonance anyway doesn't it?

I was, actually, almost reluctant to print over what I had so far; I was really liking the green/yellow combination. Visions of a totally different colour scheme came and went while I entertained thoughts of maybe adding in just a darker, maybe forest green, and leaving it at that. In the end I chose to stick to original plan and to consider doing another, similar, print and experiment with the colours there. Now, seeing the red added, I'm pretty happy I stuck to the plan. That's one of the things I love about reduction prints: all the different faces a print can wear before it's finished. It's that Wow! Cool! thing that goes on.

Anyway, printing done and feeling on top of things, I finished off a good weekend by baking one of the magnificent (another "m" word) breads I've been making since I discovered Jim Lahey and his amazing bread technique. I used the recipe as it is here (except with whole wheat bread flour) but I now also have Jim's book so I can try out some other things.

Yes, I really did make this bread! And yes, it really does taste as wonderful as it looks: crackly crust, moist and chewy crumb, and everything else you could possibly want a bread to be. Not bad for something that involved less than 15 minutes of actual labour. It was a perfect match to the Salmon Bisque R makes for us all each year on Mother's day.

Misregistration Irritation

2010-05-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

Trying to decide which colour will be next in a reduction print is often a bit of a shell game for me. This is because the whole "print from light to dark" concept isn't always 100% applicable. Like in my current print, where the values of the three colours still to be printed (red, green, and blue) are much the same with none really lighter than the others. In such a case, which colour should go down first? Luckily, or unluckily, I delayed that decision for one more week by remembering I planned to add another, lighter, colour before the last three. So, today, I printed the pale sage/mint green here:

Although I didn't have it in my original colour sketch, I'm adding it in to flesh out the leaves around the blooms. Because it is a green, I figure it won't really take me away from my yellow, red, blue, green theme.

But what an F-ing frustrating printing session today! I ran into issues with registration and, no matter what I tried to get around them, I couldn't get my colours to line up. In most of the prints it's minor, as in the image above, and I'm hoping the next darker colour will overshadow the problem. In one or two cases however, it's really obvious. In the example below, none of the yellow shadows are supposed to be there. Grrrrrrr!

I'm pretty sure this is because I'm using a lighter-weight paper than I normally do. My favourite is BFK Rives but, because it can get pricey, I usually print on Rising Stonehenge 250 gsm. It's a sturdy paper that stands up well to the many ink layers I often end up with in my reductions. The thing is, I also like the look of lighter, Japanese-style, papers and a while ago bought several sheets of Masa: a machine made, Japanese type hybrid, smooth on one side and textured on the other. At 77 gsm it's way lighter than I'm used to and I've only used it so far for the single-ink prints I've done. But I was curious to see how it would stand up to more than one colour and, since I'm not using that many colours in this print, I thought I'd give it a try.

The registration problem I'm running into is not with the paper as such, but with the registration method I use: a three-hole punch attached to a piece of plexi-glass laid on top of my press bed. I've got a couple of images of it at the bottom of the post here along with the link to the Andrew Gott original WetCanvas post I based my system on. Just to be clear, so far, this method has worked supremely well for me. But I've always used a heavier paper. Now, the holes I've punched into the top of the lighter-weight Masa are stretching a bit and the paper is sliding around. Very little but enough to throw off the registration. I'm going to have to figure out a solution for this problem by next time or I'll be screwed. And, I'll end up with a lot more prints to turn into bookmarks than I have need for.

Birthday Florals

2010-04-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was the birthday girl again although the "girl" part of it takes some suspension of disbelief in this case. I might just be pushing it but then again, says who? I still feel like I have some more growing up to do. Anyway, my reward for aging so gracefully was a packet of books (there can never be enough books), a bit of jewelery, a gorgeous CD of Melody Gardot's music (I think succulent would be a fitting way to describe it), and lots of flowers. It's been a great spring for lilacs and the tree outside our window is heavy with blooms this year so R brought some of them inside for me.

Along with the usual birthday celebrations I took time for the folk floral I'd begun carving two weeks ago.

I printed the first colour last Sunday, before we left for the Southern Cross exhibit;

Today I added in the second, a lovely vibrant gold:

I was most curious, clearing the block for the second colour, about the way the dots inside the leaves would turn out. I'm not always sure if I've carved a block deeply enough but my worries this time were unfounded. The dots turned out just fine...

...and I'm very satisfied with the way the print is shaping up so far.

Socially Conscious Printmaking

2010-04-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

I don't usually take time to read the paper in the mornings. For sure not during the week when breakfast is something that happens while I'm standing up, making lunches and getting ready for work. But, sometimes on Saturdays, when there isn't anything else to read, I pick up the paper and scan it. Yesterday was one of those newspaper Saturdays and how lucky for me that it was because I came across an ad for an exhibit at the Burnaby Art Gallery. It was just a little ad, at the bottom corner of one of the pages, and all it said, essentially, was "Laurence Hyde, Southern Cross" and then the gallery address. Almost like this, except the image was different:

Well, I confess, I didn't know who Laurence Hyde was or what, exactly, Southern Cross meant but I recognized the image in the ad as a print so I Googled both (how did people ever learn about stuff before the Internet came along???) and I knew it would be worth checking it out. And that's what I did. R's been at an all weekend workshop and I originally planned to go solo but took my parents along in the end, because I figured they might like an outing. They don't get out that much anymore, specially not to such a lovely place.

The Burnaby Art Gallery, situated in a park and surrounded by gardens, was once Ceperley House: "one of the finest examples of Edwardian architecture in the Lower Mainland". Hardwood floors, sunlight filtering in through stained glass windows, high ceilings. Perfect for art shows. We were alone for most of the time, it was the last day of the show, and we had plenty of time to really look at each of the engravings on display. All 118 of them.

Southern Cross is actually a book, a graphic novel without words, published in 1951 and reprinted again a couple of years ago by Drawn and Quarterly, a small publishing house in Montreal. In brief, Laurence Hyde created the engravings in response to what he perceived to be a monstrous social injustice. There's more info about it here. And some sample images here. There were only two fulls sets of the prints ever pulled and what we saw today was one of them. That, in itself, was a rush. The other incredible thing was how powerful the engravings were.

Despite their relatively small size, maybe 5" x 4", the images absolutely popped. So much vitality, and so much detail, within each one. I realized again how much I love the interplay of light and shadow when it's done well. I myself, for my own prints, usually turn to colour and, I've said this before, working with colour may just be easier in a way. Not only is it easier to get an emotion across with the use of colour but, sometimes, with its ability to invoke an emotional response, colour may deflect from minor flaws that would be more apparent in a black and white image. So you've got to be really good to work in black and white and to really pull the viewer in. The engravings I saw today were damn good. There were no words but words weren't needed; the images spoke volumes.

I'm thinking I'll have to order the book now.