"Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!"

"Heeeeeeeere's Johnny" 5 x 11 monotype print


the plate ready for printing


the moment of truth


freshly pulled print and plate with residual ink

True Grit

True Grit 4 x 4 woodblock print

John Wayne played Rooster Cogburn in the 1969 film True Grit, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. John Wayne epitomized rugged masculinity, was larger than life, and my dad loved him. There's a line in the Statler Brothers song Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott? that sums up my father's (and his generation's) feelings about John Wayne and what he represented in society: "True Grit's the only movie I've really understood in years." My father was also fond of saying "real men don't eat quiche".

Like the Clint Eastwood print, this is also a two-color woodblock print. The blue color field is printed first, then the image, inked in black, is printed on top of it.

inking the block

fresh off the press

Clint Print

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 8 x 12 woodblock print

The Hollywood icons series continues with Clint Eastwood from the 1966 'spaghetti western', The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. This is a two color woodblock print using two 8 x 12 woodblocks. The first block was simply inked and printed to create the orange-red 'color field'. Then the image was carved into the second block, inked in brown and printed on top of the color field. Below is the finished print being pulled from the woodblock.

Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship 6 x 9 Monotype

For your consideration, today's print comes from the 1944 Best Picture winner Casablanca.
To try and capture the quality of a black & white film, the monotype is printed with dark gray etching ink on gray Rives BFK printmaking paper.

Here's looking at you, kid.

Steve McQueen is... Bullitt

Bullitt 5 x 9 linoleum block print on chine collé

Continuing the theme of Hollywood icons is macho cool Steve McQueen from the pinnacle of his career in the movie "Bullitt". The foreground print image is carved into and printed from a linoleum block. Since the movie is famous for the car chase/driving sequences, it seemed appropriate to have him driving the green Mustang in the background. Below is the print without the chine collé for comparison.

Darth Vader Monotype/Photo Etching

Darth Vader 4x6 Photo Etching printed on Comic Book Panel
The first print in today's post is continuing the experimentation with printing on top of other images. This is printed onto an image from a vintage 30 year old Star Wars comic book (Click on it for a more detailed view of the underlying image). This print is a photo etching done from a monotype printed on a chine collé comic book panel. Below is the original monotype print.

Darth Vader 4x6 Monotype

Bandit 2.0

Greetings, gentle readers! I was burned out after my art show this summer, so I took an art break. Didn't expect it to be such a long break, but - ah well, good intentions, etc.

Anywho, I've started doing some new prints and experimenting with some new ideas. I'm printing on top of other images using a chine collé technique. Loyal readers may remember this Smokey and the Bandit collograph print from a previous post, but this time I've printed old Burt on top of a soft painterly image of the black Bandit TransAm.

The idea is for the background image to be a secondary image that supports and informs the foreground print image. By combining the two images, the finished print also has a slightly abstracted feel.

Sorry for the prolonged absence. I'll try to get back in the swing of posting semi-regularly. More to come...