Sketchbook Peek

Take a peek into my sketchbook. Some of these sketches have nothing to do with anything. Some of them are old. Most of them are new. Enjoy.

Experiment: Intaglio Printing

Last quarter, I took a studio in Advanced Printmaking, as I have taken three studios in different kinds of printmaking (screen-printing, intaglio, and relief). In this studio, I focused on intaglio. Here is a sampling of the prints that resulted. These are more monoprint than intaglio, to be honest, as I painted thinned ink straight onto the plate to print. However, I would call them intaglio since the plate was a zinc plate that I had etched initially. I worked with the same plate all quarter. It's fascinating that you can achieve many different effects and moods using the exact same plate.

Thesis

I am in my final year at school, and because of that, I am working on a thesis. (Thesis: it's a big deal.) I'm not ready to share the specifics of it yet, but the short of it is, my thesis is about the celebration of nature. Nature has always been a common subject in my work, and now I am exploring the theme behind it. I decided to stick with a single specific subject for the thesis, the sky

I have taken many photographs of the sky in the last couple years. Here are a few I've taken specifically for use in my thesis.

 

Experiment: Relief Printing

Here's another print that I only recently received back from my professor. This was the first print I did last spring in my relief printing class, and it ended up being my favorite.

Here are the other prints I did that class, for good measure. (You may remember seeing the last print here in my first post: The Opening Theory.)

Experiment: Latch hook

As an artist, I often look at things I find it stores and say, "I could make that." Or I might say, "Oh that's so cool!" Or I might say, "That is sooo expensive!" You'd be surprised how often I say all three at once. So it goes without saying (but I will say it anyway) that I find myself drawn to crafts.

I found this awesome tutorial for a latch hook rug last month and decided to give it a try. I've been working on acquiring supplies and cutting fabric ever since. For my rug, I decided to use fabric scraps I already owned, rather than going out and buying mass t-shirts. I have lots of fabric I've been saving for no particular project and decided I might as well use it. I did a small latch hook project when I was younger, made of yarn, so I'm somewhat familiar with the process. It's one of those repetitive tasks that I enjoy for some reason.

The rug will be 37"x30" (the canvas is cut that size, at least; I will probably have to cutoff excess at the end). I am using whatever color fabric I have. So far, that's been a lot of red/pinks and green, with a bit of black and blue.

I went ahead and started the actual hooking process, even though I doubt I've cut enough fabric yet. It's slow going, but as I said, I enjoy it. I will continue to cut and latch and post my progress.

Experiment: Comics

In honor of finally taking another comics studio this new quarter, here are scans of a large-scale comic I did last spring that I just received back from my teacher. The assignment was to create a page that would look right in a  Kramers Ergot book (here is the Amazon.com link to Kramers Ergot 7). This piece is 23"x29", if I remember correctly. A pain and a half to create, but so satisfying.

Large file.

Several close-up images:

Experiment: Screen-printing (Part VI)

Long time, no see. Hell Week and Finals Week at school. But here's part of what I've been up to.

Part V showed you the stencils I made for my comic print. I managed to pick up contact paper (who knew that Contact was actually a brand name?) and remade all the stencils. They still did not want to print very well, but by doing two drops of color without lifting the screen, I managed to make them work. Here's what a test print of the blue, the first drop, looked like on newsprint.

And the newsprint with test prints of all four color drops. The bottom half of the black comic lines came out much thinned and fainter than I expected, which I was not pleased about. But again, with a double drop, they were acceptable.

Quick shots of the (basically) final prints. I'm picking up my graded portfolio from this class tomorrow, so proper scans will be up later in the week.

A second print was due at the same time as the above print, and I wanted the two to be related. I mentioned this in Part V as well. So as I printed the comic print, I slipped in smaller sheets of good paper where I knew ink would be coming through and I hadn't bothered to prevent (knowing I would be making these other prints). Each one has a drop of each color and most have a second drop of red. There was no registration, so they are all a little bit different. I burned the smaller comic transparency onto my screen and printed in on top of the color. Like the above print, I will scan them properly tomorrow and have them posted later this week.