Posts Tagged ‘printmaking’

New prints

Posted on: July 29th, 2010
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on the printmaking portfolio page

I finally got around to updating the printmaking portfolio page of my website with a few of the recent adventures in the printmaking studio. There are four new images from the series, as yet untitled, of matboard etchings on top of the written page. It’s been great fun returning to the process of printing etching plates. Something, I thought I’d forgotten how to do, but evidently all those hours spent in the Kirkland etching studio were enough to instill some kind of muscle memory.

Check ‘em out byclicking here!

One Hundred

Posted on: June 10th, 2010
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Meditations on 9 collages …

It may have taken close to four years, but I finally reached the one-hundred-mark. I started the Meditations on 9 series after coming across a reference to a nine-patch Amish quilt in a book I was reading. I’d often worked with a grid, and wondered what would happen if I made one hundred collages based on that simple nine-patch pattern? Could I even sustain that idea?

I started with a bang the first summer – initially finding something soothing about the challenge. All I had to do was go in my studio and move pieces of paper around. There was a structure within which to work. A task. I could settle into it. And even though I veered off in several other directions as time went on, I did keep coming back to it, and 100 collages later, I am still compelled by them.

The plates

Posted on: May 30th, 2010
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Where did the month of May go?

I am embarrased that it’s been almost a month since I last wrote. The month of May does bring all kinds of obligatory activites: namely getting the garden started. And the weather has been positively summer like – about three weeks early here in Maine.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some artistic activity. Since the Peregrine Press Springs sale – which proved quite successful. Many thanks to all of you who checked out my sale page and lent your support – I’ve been working on preparing for some juried show applications, as well as the Peregrine Press Flat file project (more on that later).

I am still compelled by the prints I’ve been working on the last few months; at left is a photo of some of the used and abused plates. Making the plates is a lot like making a collage; the plates were, in fact, completely inspired by the “Picking Up the Pieces” series of collages I’ve been working on since December. Coming full circle, I recently made a small series of 10 collages using some of the proof prints. From collage to print and back again. Here are just a few for your perusal. Enjoy!

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spring has sprung

Posted on: April 5th, 2010
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the best april fool’s day joke

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen flowers blooming around my house as early as April 1st. But after almost two weeks of rain, signs of color were more than welcome. Maybe it’s because I did a massive attack with pruning shears to the forsythia bush last year, or maybe it’s all the rain, either way, there are a whole mess of little purple crocuses smiling on us – including volunteers in the middle of the yard. What fun.

Lest you suspect spring fever has overtaken my discipline…check out some recent adventures in the studio by clicking here!

Salvaging un disastro

Posted on: March 17th, 2010
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my new title: salvage queen

Last week I went into the print studio with a plan. I had a grid marked out for the press bed, and was going to print a set of small plates multiple times on a large piece of paper. Nothing too seemingly complicated about that. I put my grid on the press bed, and proceeded to spend the next hour inking up the plates. Turns out, it was the wrong set of plates. UGH.

Well, what could I do? I printed them anyway – randomly on the big piece of paper. Made myself a huge mess – the paper was too wet, and in certain areas it pulled up onto the plate. I had written on the page with all kinds of materials – including watercolor crayons which ran all over the place. Oh well.

There’s always the possibility of ripping and reconfiguring the thing. So that’s what I did. It continues to amaze me – the power of a bunch of marks on a page.