New Post?! Believe It

Greetings, gentle readers
Seems I'm doing lots of apologizing for not keeping current. I have some friends whose blogs I frequent, and when there is no new post I'm dissappointed. I'm sorry if my lack of discipline is making any of you feel similarly.

Well, at least I've been working on art. So much art. As many of you know I have an art show up now in Birmingham, Alabama. It's been a long time, and I'd forgotten how much work it is to put up a show. I'm pretty happy with the work though and thought I'd blog a piece or two.

This print is a monotype of the old Lyric and Alabama Theatres in downtown Birmingham. When I was growing up these theatres were run down, largely forgotten relics from a time when people actually went downtown. When I was in college, the Alabama was in the process of being restored and was a venue for concerts and touring productions. Many people were happy to see this former Showplace of the South alive again.

This print depicts the Alabama and Lyric Theatres in all their neon glory, lighting up the night. It is printed with black etching ink and colored with watercolor and colored pencil.

Rome or Bust II : Collograph

Rome or Bust II - 8x10 Collograph Print with Watercolor
Another Museum Series print, this time it's a collograph. A detailed explanation of the collograph process is listed in the blog post prior (below) this one. The finished print was watercolored after printing. Below is a process pic of the very early design and layout of the collograph plate.

These two process pictures show close-ups of the construction paper layers laid out prior to being glued down. The edges of each layer hold ink when the plate is inked and wiped.



Below is the plate shiny and sticky with wet ink ready to print.


Below is the print being pulled from the plate after going through the press.


Have any questions about this process? Feel free to ask.

Roller Derby Queen: Collograph

Greetings gentle readers,
Sorry to have abandoned you for so long.

It has been requested that I post a collograph with a bit of 'how to' to the blog. These prints, Roller Derby Queen Series, are collographs printed with etching ink on Arches Cover paper. The image size is 4" x 12" on a 7 1/2" x 15" piece of paper. These prints and other collographs are available for sale here.

Collographs are a simple yet surprisingly sophisticated printmaking technique:

1) Select a substrate to use as the 'plate' (cardboard, masonite or my choice - matboard)


2) Create an image by cutting paper, string, etc. and glueing them down in layers with gloss medium and varnish to the substrate.


3) Once the image is laid out and glued down, coat the entire plate (front and back) with more medium/varnish to seal the plate.

4) The plate is then inked and wiped. The entire plate is covered in ink and then carefully wiped with a cheescloth like material to remove ink from the top flat surfaces and rub ink into all the edges, nooks and crannies. Any place the plate holds ink will create the defining lines of the image. The plate can also be 'top rolled' with another color ink before printing (the hot pink print was inked this way).

5) The plate is then placed on the press, covered with a sheet of paper and run through the press. Presto!


After letting the prints dry, they can be colored with watercolor, pastel, colored pencil,etc. to achieve unique finishes. The first image at the top of this post was watercolored after printing. If you have any questions about this technique, feel free to ask.

Nude w/ stockings

Nude w/stockings: 6 x 9 Encaustic Monotype
(Private Collection)

This print is an encaustic monotype printed on black Arches Cover paper with Caran d'Ache oil based crayons. This process is achieved by:
1) Placing a clean metal (zinc) plate on a hot plate and heating it to around 120-130 degrees. 2) Drawing the image on the plate with crayons (caran d'ache oil crayons - you can even use crayolas). The hot plate melts the crayons into pools of pigment. 3) With the image roughly laid out on the plate, removing pigment with Q-tips to define the image. 4) Transfering the image to the paper by placing it over the plate and rolling it firmly with a brayer. Presto!
The nature of a monotype is that it is a "one-off". They are more like paintings than prints in the traditional sense. Only one or two prints can be pulled from a plate before cleaning off the plate (thus losing the image) and starting over. They are not numbered because there is no edition.


I love this process. Its fast, loose and very painterly.

Happy Easter, Jesus!

Today's post in celebration of Easter is a linoleum print or 'lino-cut' (same as the Taurus print for you regular readers). The above print is printed on a newsprint colored paper with varying shades of brown ink. Below is a print from the same block printed on black paper with gold ink.


Don't eat too many chocolate bunnies! Happy Easter, everybody.

Dionysus, Poseidon?... Hermes!

If I had known I was going to print so many of these scultpures from the Getty, I would have have better documented their subject/title(s). This is either Dionysus or Poseidon. (UPDATE: my resourceful sources tell me this is actually a sculpture of Hermes, messenger to the gods. Thanks,B!) Maybe I should just call it Man with Big Squared-Off Beard, since that is what drew me to snap a picture of this piece.

This print is a monotype printed in black etching ink with the blue background tapped onto the plate and just a tiny bit of detail added with watercolor.



Above is the plate ready to be printed. Below is the print being pulled from the plate.

Constantine the Great

The Museum series continues with Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. Fun Facts: Constantine was the first Christian Roman Emperor (a turning point for the Christian Church). Constantinople was named after him and was the first Christian city in the world.

This print also continues my experimentation with applying color by tapping ink onto the plate. This go round I discovered you can't work the plate too long or your colored ink will start to dry to the plate. I worked the plate for about three hours and had all the highlights and shadows in copper patina greens and rust in browns and oranges, and unfortunately much of that detail stayed on the plate and did not transfer to the print. I think the print is still successful, but its not as opaque or detailed as I'd anticipated. But that's all part of printmaking; you never know exactly what you're going to get.



This is the copper plate with the residual ink still on it. Better than the print? You decide.