Category Archives: My Art
Working with small plates at the print shop
My new mini-print mini folio: the folio is 6″x7.5″, & has the hand rubbed iris print on the front. Inside are two variations from a shellac matboard plate, mounted for easy removal. The plates are 3″x3″. The color on the 2nd fuschia print is watercolor painted added after the print was dry.
I was tired working in the print shop yesterday afternoon, especially after completing an edition of 16 for our current print exchange. To experiment & use up ink, I grabbed leftover paper and printed some more, using the Iris that is featured in the edition with other recently created plates. Select an image to see the folio and these other prints in the larger lightbox display.
If only I had managed to get them straight on the paper! Oh well…
Drawing on wood & new prints (w/colored pencil)
The drawing is done with water soluble graphite pencils, “painted” with water, on a piece of MDF (medium density fiberboard) primed with two coats of white Golden Absorbent Ground. I like this ground, and being able to use water media directly on a board, no paper!
The collagraph plate is built up on matboard with paper, vinyl spackle, & elmers glue, all coated with shellac when dry. I stamped into the wet spackle & glue mix to make the impressions…
Manipulation of an sketch
Current work…
Proofing plates without the press…
I am working with various low tech matboard 3″x3″ plates for a print exchange. I have made some 12 foil covered collagraph plates, and eight shellac over cut matboard plates, but have not yet printed all of them! The first six foil plates are too irregular and don’t quite please me: some are not square, and the relief is not enough: I have been working into all the prints with colored pencil. Love the yellow glow monoprint background with the red & green though.
The shellac flower plates have been proofed without a press, last night in art class. Next to print them on the press!
More work, more work, more work…
Progress on my Exorcism Series
Old prints & salvaged chess box…
I modified a portable chess game box that I found discarded without chess pieces to create this small reliquary. It is 2.5″ x 5″ x .75″ closed, & opens up flat to 5″ x 5″. Thought I was done with the first two images, but I could not leave well enough alone, so kept going. Not a big improvement, I am afraid!
I replaced the chequered chess board outside pieces with sections of an enhanced monoprint, also used to line the inside of my box.Then I added the “artifacts” on the inside, which include found animal teeth, a shell, a stone, and an intricate seed pod. So now here is another of my personal “spirit boxes”: something of a small shrine. This one is small & portable enough to pack to take traveling :-). The magnetic latch & hard plastic will allow me to store a few small items safely inside: maybe a pair of earings?
This is another more complete piece that started as a monoprint, now titled “Encounter”. I had no idea where this piece was going until I added one of the dog figures using a stencil made from contact paper… the piece took off from there, and I like it now. Not sure if these are feral or fully wild “dogs” 🙂
