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18 days ago
I get very emotional on Remembrance Day. I think of the soldiers past and present who fight in terrible wars, who go into harm’s way in the name of peace and I don’t want us to ever forget the sacrifices that they make. I don’t want this to just be a “day off” for my kids. I want them to understand what it’s all about. Today at 11 the kids and I will watch this video. And I’ll try to explain what it all means. And I’ll take flowers to my friend who’s brother died in Iraq.
25 days ago
mushrooms… sketches… a new print, maybe? Inspiration came from a few different places today; - a couple of months ago I took a bunch of photos of mushrooms on a walk through the inland coastal forest at Ocean Shores. I finally uploaded them to my computer. - then I saw amazing paper cut mushrooms on page 38 of Anthropologie’s November catalog. - and yesterday I was reading Jill Bliss’s blog. We’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you posted!
38 days ago
These journals are amazing. Each time I visit the site I pick about eight that I would love to own and several more that would be perfect for friends. Such a simple idea, and cleverly executed. Each journal is made from an old book, but not just the cover. The makers have kept several of the inside pages and intermixed them with the blank pages. A friend has one and they are even nicer in person. See, here is one for my husband. His new boss is a physicist. I’ll bet this would really impress him if Derick used it to take notes in a meeting! My daughter could use this one as a sketch book in class. Her teacher’s will never know ;-)
42 days ago
This is a cool little technique that I learned in my printmaking class. I nice way to add a bit of color to your prints, especially when you are primarily working in black and white. I used this to turn my little skeleton man into a ghoooost. (Miss R drew the skeleton and I transferred it to a safety-cut block and carved it. ) I’m going to try to explain how I do this, but if you have any questions, let me know! stamp your carved block on a piece of cardstock. cut out the shape that you would like to use as the colored portion of your print. This becomes your template. I wanted the body of the skeleton to be white so I just cut out this portion. using your template cut out pieces of paper that will add the color to your print. I used white mulberry paper. Mulberry and tissue papers are “traditional” chine colle papers but honestly, you can use anything. ink up your stamp. paint glue (I use nori paste, again a traditional paste for this technique but any ...
47 days ago
After thinking about the intaglio prints that I did last year and comparing it to the results of the prints this year I concluded that the root cause of the problem is trying to use the MDF. I carved too deeply and expected the paper to be pushed into the deep grooves to pick up the ink. Instead it picked up the ink on the sides of the grooves, as per the diagram (it’s a wonder I think of myself as an artist). The result is that the lines are doubled, and in some areas, very faint. You can still see some of the embossing along the edge though, which is nice. The final problem is working with wet pencils, wet paper and wet MDF, it all starts to blur a bit. The MDF is getting all frayed and so the block is likely to be put out to pasture, or get a hook on the back for hanging. Back to shellac intaglio for me. But in the meantime, I’ve a bunch of small woodblocks that need printing. Stay tuned.
