Copper Complete

The Foredom has been grinding away, relentlessly, turning a lovely piece of copper into dust.  Yeah! we have an image - and one that I think conveys the tranquility of Tryon Creek State Park.  It is difficult to get a good photo of a metallic surface, but I hope you can tell a little of what is intended from this shot.

This piece is intended to exist as the copper plate mounted onto the exterior of a house.  But, there are some pretty interesting passages and I had to know how these marks might translate to paper.

detail from copper plate

So, I pulled a print using Akua Carbon Black -  the wonderful part of that is that after the print is pulled the plate cleans with soap and water and very little elbow grease (which is more than I can say for wiping the plate prior to printing!  I thought my arm was going to drop off.)

Obviously, this was not what I would like if this were intended as a print, but in this instance I think there is 

a lot to work with and as soon as the ink is dry I am ready to dive in and see what I can come up with.  Meanwhile, though, some of the marks translated quite differently than I would have thought.  Some are really dark, and some are quite transparent and almost fragile. 

detail from print

This little detail will give me something to muck about in and see what works and what doesn't.  Meanwhile, though, I think the copper will stand alone and that is what matters.  The Foredom will enjoy a nice rest.  

Copper Engraving

Good grief! It has been ages since I've written anything.  Between travel, Christmas, Colds, and general winter lethargy, not a whole lot has happened.  But, I couldn't put off getting this copper piece started any longer.  Hopefully, it will be the engraved plate which is its primary purpose, AND I will be able to get a print off of it for my show in June, which I am really supposed to be working on.  It is pretty slow going and I can only stand to work on it four to six hours a day - my back seems to feel it is obligated to set up a major screaming session if I try to push it any further.  So, here is as far as we have made it after about 4 days of work:

The section under the newsprint will be the next part and will be started this weekend.  Meanwhile, I am off to Ink and Drink at Atelier Meridian this evening.  My son and I are going to sneak off and "smash hearts" (make valentines for our respective spouses).  Should be great fun!

The Peril of Too Many Pelicans

Sometimes a block just cries to be printed in many different ways, and such is the case of my pelicans.  They have been on "fabric" and they have been made into a "dress", but they were not content.  There was a piece of marbled paper in my flat files and they screamed to be printed on it.  Between the Pelicans and the paper wailing "oil spill, oil spill" I had no choice.  This cacophony must be stilled.  The result:

 And, I was happy with this until..... one day as the print was lying on my framing table another print of the same image, but on the filmy Japanese paper that I used to make the dress, fell on top of this one.  Oh my!  This led an entirely new dimension.  So, I lined them up and then very carefully adhered  the two together.  There is no going back now.  Here is the final product:

This set my oil slick more in the background and gave the whole scene another dimension - almost making it look 3D without the glasses.  Whoa, Nellie!  I could be on to something!

The Black Swan

Finally - the much grumped about Black Swan print is done, done, done and I'm going to deliver them to Barbara this evening.  Getting a decent photo or scan has been a problem, however.  Metallic paint just doesn't put its best foot forward in situations like this.  You will just have to take my word for it that these look a whole lot better in person. ;-)

I think most everyone nowadays knows what a black swan is, and it is not a swan that comes in black.  It is an incident that, although you may have planned for it, it far exceeds the scope of your planning and is devastating. That is how it was described to me.  I think that pretty much covers the quake, tsunami, and subsequent problems at the nuclear plant.  Some of the flowers are the radioactivity icon, though that may not be apparent to anyone but me.

Two blocks were printed, the red and black.  A gold block was cut, but I could not find a gold pigment that would print as bright as I wanted, so the gold leaves and swans were painted.  A tiny lino was cut for the stamen and pistils and printed in black and gold.


                                              
 
                                                           Earth quakes.  Tsunami. 
                                                    Suddenly, black swan:  flowers
                                                                 radioactive. 


(My apologies to all you poets...)

After the Fabric comes the Dress

Printing the "Fabric of the Gulf" (see the previous post) and working with this delicious Japanese paper, the desire to attempt to sew it up into something was too much temptation to resist.  With that in mind I found a cheap pattern and went home ready to print and sew and that I did.  While at the fabric store a few days later looking for black satin to fashion a slip and oil spill for this piece,  I ran into Ross Dress for Less (conveniently located next door) and ran into the most perfect dress form in a size and shape unknown to any human female.  I grabbed that baby and stuffed her into my cart so fast it made my head spin. And, when I got her home she perfectly fit the dress which is a more or less size 4.   A Great Debate followed as to whether or not my new model needed a slip.  I finally decided it made a much stronger piece with a black background for this transparent paper.

With every piece we do we should learn something which will make the next piece we do even better, right?  Well, I learned so much on this one that my next venture should be a real doozy.

And to give you a little closer look:

The bird nest was contributed by a family of hummingbirds.  It is filled with three Sculpey  eggs looking pretty oily thanks to some acrylic pigments.  The title of this dress is Big Problems For Sale.  According to the tag, this is brought to you by Bad People and can be yours for a mere $200 biillion.  Information on the reverse of the tag says, " Species at risk, people at risk.  Waiting for restitution."

A few days later I printed the same block one more time, but that will be the next post.

Japan Relief print

I'm ready to start the Japan Relief print - I think.  Hopefully, all the layers have been thought out and will come together as the brain pictures them.  This is the drawing, which is loosely based on a greeting card image by a Yoshi Watanabe who is/was chief of business administration in the econ department at Japan's Josai University and who gave permission for his image to be used by UC Riverside.  I've tried to find a way to reach this gentlemen & asked his permission to take off from his work, but to no avail.  Well, we'll see - maybe he will materialize and I can ask and, I hope, he will say yes....  If anyone knows how to reach him, would you let me know?

Mr. Watanabe's work had cranes, where I have swans, placed a little differently, too.  One of my swans will be black, and all of Mr. W's cranes are gold.  Mr. W. had all the same flowers, where some of mine have taken on the shape of the "radioactive" icon.    Mr. W's swans and leaves are metallic gold and I hope I can do the same with mine, except for the black one, but we'll see.  They may take on a different color depending upon the luck I have with the gold powder...

So, here is the block with the image transferred:

I wanted to show you this image because I've used the  "Studio Paper" sold by McClain's.  You just print the image onto a sheet of this paper using an ink jet printer.  Then invert it and rub it lightly onto your block.  The ink sits on top of the paper long enough for you to easily make the transfer.  As you can see, every detail transfers beautifully.  No toxic chemicals were used transferring this image.  And, the best part is that you can use the sheets several times.  Just wipe the remaining ink off the paper after your transfer and it is ready to go again.  I love it.  Now, all I have to do is learn to make my own transfer paper.  I have an idea.... we'll see if it works.  Maybe tomorrow... but, now it is time to carve.

Caer & Angus

After several weeks of carving (I'm neither speedy nor tenacious) and a solid week of printing, the work for the Mythology exchange is done and ready to go into the mail and wing its way to IL.  Carving the line print on a piece of cherry plywood from McClain's was pure joy.  I think I only had one spot where a piece splintered and took off on its own and that was easily repaired with the fake wood stuff.  In addition to the line block the others were yellow, blue and red.  The final block was for embossing the swan's heads, necks, and wings.  I think it was a successful print, but I, of course, had to run into one pot hole along the road to completion.  I read David Bull's entry on embossing in the Encyclopedia at www.Barenforum.org and he cautioned to dampen the block to keep the paper from slipping.  I guess I overdid the dampen part and the sumi, which had been printed the day before, blurred and ran in places of its own choosing.  Finally, I quit the dampening and had no more problems.  The paper was still damp enough from printing, I guess, that it didn't move.  I confess to cheating - I used the etching press to do the embossing.  It wasn't particularly faster, but it was a lot easier on my elbows, which is what David recommends!  He is just made of sturdier stuff than I am, and besides, he's younger.
Enough good things can't be said regarding Guerra pigment dispersions.  They are just truly fabulously fantastic.  Such nice rich colors and so very little ink used - they are amazing.
The story of Caer and Angus was told on the previous entry, so I won't repeat it here.  Here they are making beautiful music together.  Listen carefully and you may be lulled to sleep for 3 days and nights. (Or maybe just reading this entry will do that.....)