Fall Patch. Approx 3" Diameter, Craft Felt And Embroidery Thread, Front And Back.

Fall Patch. approx 3" diameter, craft felt and embroidery thread, front and back.

this is what I made today. it took me about 3 hours off and on. figured I'm putting up so much old stuff I should mix it up with something new.

I'm taking a small break from working on my giant embroidery project to play around a little with other needlework techniques, and also working small and quick is rewarding. it keeps the dopamine flowing to finish things.

Tonight I tried to clean my screen in the bathtub with hot water, baking soda,  and the wrong kind of screen cleaner. the streaky green stuff is diazo photo emulsion still on it from the last time I tried to clean it about two years ago. (fruitless note to past self: do not rely on lab partners to not use all the screen-cleaner, buy your own bottle and hoard it)

mixed results (obviously) but not bad for old fashioned bathroom seriography.

I do not want to buy a whole thing of special screen cleaner. I want to do some reductive work with the blue stuff and the brown stuff.

sometimes my wants are not at issue.

in my head I call this one something like "carried away by the bluebird of happiness" but that is a bitch and a half to write on an edition of 36. so I titled it Joy.

if you turn your head you will note that it works in every possible orientation of the paper. but this is printmaking, and bitches need titles, edition numbers, and signatures. so Christine picked this orientation and I went with it.

it was created for a print exchange and exhibition put together by a classmate of mine, in conjunction with other students and alums of WWU and UW's printmaking programs. I was asked to not participate by my professor because he was worried that I would slap together something horrible and messy at the last minute and disgrace him and his printmaking program. considering my track record, a not unreasonable concern.

luckily for me, I had already paid my money to Drew, and started work on my print before Ben decided I would be a liability, so I felt I had to do my best to show him I was capable of putting together something that would  show my capabilities and my worth as a printmaker.

of course, I then decided to hand color the whole edition.

I didn't color three that I used with my exclusively black and white works in my BFA show. one of which is shown here. carving printing and coloring this edition took around two weeks in total. which admittedly involved a lot of drying time.

I like hand coloring. it's easier for me to control than multi-block processes and if I use an oil based ink and a water based paint on high quality paper the color stays between the lines with water tension. but, it introduces inconsistencies to an edition. which is a cardinal sin in printmaking. so I painted every one of them in layers, using one batch of paint at a time on all of them one by one, so they would look exactly the same.

it's still considered a lazy and unprintmakerly technique.

of course another friend of mine got flak for doing a no-color black lino cut. and of course, after we got the packet back with everyone's prints in it, UW had done a bunch of sloppy abstract bullshit anyway and the best stuff was done by WWU alumni who I assume didn't even get yelled at a little.

storal of this mory being that you can't win against other people's anxiety problems.

and if you want 25 near-perfect prints, start with 40.

The thing about making art is:

If you're good enough to be able to see what you want, you can make the image/object itself out of pretty much anything.

Right now I'm working on sewing some color onto a print I made. most of its fraternal twins are on paper, it's not exactly an edition. I made more than I needed off the block and then burned it into a screen using a print on oiled newsprint and then printed more, two of which are on canvas. at the time I figured I needed bases for mixed media projects outside of school. turns out I was right and I wish I'd made more when I could. but yeah, I made a lot of these because the image itself pleases me. I didn't edition them, so I could color them in by hand and not have to deal with Printmaker Judgement, which is what one gets from other printmakers when the edition is inconsistent (or nonexistent).

I'm doing a very normal version of the colors I usually put on this, only difference is that it's fiber art and it's taking forever to finish because it's painstaking and I keep stabbing myself in the left hand.

last bit of that is normal for my process I guess. almost as much as inspiration striking me exclusively at 2am.

but yeah, mom wanted to go to the JoAnne's in Federal Way tonight. they were out of the glow-in-the-dark embroidery floss so I just picked up some more colors that aren't the variegated stuff I've been working with, and some pieces of felt to make things with.

brought the in-progress canvas scrap in to check it against the colors they had in the store, got complimented by the cashier on it being beautiful. so that kinda made my night.

anyways, I guess this is another picture of my tool-box. I will post the progress shots in victory when I finish the beast.

straight out of the little red sketchbook. I don't like to put my hand directly on my cheek because I get zits, so I'll use my hood or a scarf as a barrier.

"She was the kind of person who read books at parties"

Intaglio print, black ink on white paper.

top was in the final edition, bottom is a proof.

really I should just scan this one, it's small enough to fit an office scanner, but I'm quite enjoying presenting these pieces as objects of ephermera rather than pure images presented without the context of the hands that made them. partly because the aesthetic impulse of printmaking is the idea that the image is more important that the object where the modern conception of high art holds that the object is more important than the image.

why yes, I have been re-watching Ways of Seeing by John Berger.

so should you.

on to process: this was the last intaglio print I made both for school and not. as intaglio, like most printmaking, is a bit of a bitch to set up at home. remember, all of these processes started out and existed in their day as production processes. they are designed to allow a printing company to churn out assembly line reproductions of pictures for sale to a mass market, this was true for Hokusai as Durer, just as much as it is true for me. printmaking is not a good media for a hobbyist to do the whole job of it every once in a while. it demands dedication and equipment.

anyways, when I make an etching, my process is to sketch it out on a piece of paper, sometimes I transfer that with iron oxide,  then I hard ground etch my general lines, then I go in and do one nice deep aquatint. I stopped out the sparks and the stars before I started to give the clean whites. mid-etch I used some alcohol on the smoke to the clouds to see if I could control the effects what had earlier turned out to be a happy accident. and then I etched it to black. after that proofed it, then worked it up and further controlled the smoke effects I had created with the alcohol by burnishing out the highlights I wanted.

mid-way through this process I turned it in for critique. after being blasted pretty hard for having a messy composition and having people completely ignore the parts I wanted them to pay attention to while being unhappy what what they did see; I cut the entire foreground out of the picture with the plate-cutter. I don't have an example of the picture before I did this, it was pretty bad.

this picture is about the beginning of my relationship with Seb. he seemed to like me, but I wasn't sure what to do with him. in terms of deer-girl paranarrative, it's about deer girl before she got mixed up with the wolves, not feeling like she fit in with the people who were supposed to be the right people to fit in with.

I feel like I can't entirely get a handle on how to draw Seb. (he is depicted as a part-animal person in this, but you can't see part-what because I haven't figured that out yet) I wonder if that's because he is not so good at projecting a consistent created persona, or because I'm nearsighted and somewhat face-blind. but, his face looks different to me every day. sometimes I have to close my eyes and hold him so I can smell him to tell that I have the right guy.

the nose knows. the nose always knows.