This blog, for whomever may find it.

Modern Shades

This print, Modern Shades.

Cao//Self-Portrait

These are the first two portraits in a series I intend to elaborate upon. The idea right now is that each portrait is done in a very short amount of time in a contour style. The first drawing I do, directly on the surface of whatever material I'm working with, I either scrap or print. The title consists of the subject, exact time finished, date and location. The top print is of Gonzalo Cao, the painting teacher I had in Spain. The bottom was the first ever done and is a self portrait. These are artist proofs. I will hold off on running true series of them until I return to the Untied States where I will have a more secure place for them.

An ugly baby

This is a quick attempt at a relief etching. I thought of trying it after looking at Anish Kapoor's print in the Printmaking book. I actually thought his was an etching, but then when I looked it up online to double check (after fruitlessly looking for relief etching/intaglio) I found out it was a wood etching. I thought I'd still try it, and found out that it actually isn't too difficult if you are well prepared. This print is dirty for a number of reasons, namely because I don't have the patience tonight to clean it up, but also because regular techniques for cleaning a plate don't fair as well. Hand wiping is still the best technique without tools, but if i had q-tips then I think it'd come out spotless. At least on the relief area.
I originally wanted to only ink the raised spots, but that failed pretty much immediately. I thought if I just left the plate in the experimental bath for a few hours the acid would create enough contrast and I wouldn't have to worry about catching the ink scraper on the recessed regions. Nope. It looks like to get that kind of contrast I would need to leave the plate in the bath for at least a week. At least if I want it to be as easy as woodcut inking. That's really what I thought it would be like. At least hoped. Woodcut inking is so much easier, but of course it couldn't be that way with etching. I'll give it a week or two in the bath after I print a few more reverse prints a bit cleaner. (Reverse being in comparison to my original intentions.)

I saw this today in the Weatherspoon

Josef Albers

I can't believe I've been missing out on this for so long.

"Support". Early Stage.

Here's the most recent version of this plate, based off of a project where I was to establish a set of guidelines for getting marks on the plate, but could not do any of the marking myself. My guidelines were as follows:

-Give the plate to my folks for them to have during my bicycle race, which they would be spectating.
-Put the plate amongst the feet of the crowd, and forget about it until after the race.

The rules were pretty basic, but my mama took rein while I was racing and made sure to stomp it every time I crossed the finish line. I'm not bothered by this in the least, because really the project was about support. If she wanted to show her support by stomping my plate, so be it. You don't always have control over everything in life.

Here's a glimpse at the plate. It turned out rather pretty with natural areas of heavy and light lines, and there is an element of depth and clearing towards the center that I really like. What I'm trying to focus on now is getting the plate as clean as possible by honing my wiping skills, which have been my biggest weakness thus far. This is an especially good plate to practice my wiping skills on because the deep, coarse lines burnt into the plate tend to smear if too much pressure is added by the palm in the last stage of cleaning. In this way the plate is a sensitive indicator of how much pressure I should be applying, and though it is a bit maddening, it is proving helpful already.

Death of a Mouth

Something happened

about five minutes into killing this plate. I started to hate it. I named it a few times, pulling combinations from a list of four letter words I had in the back of my vocabulary, and began telling myself I would never find reason in the future to do this again. Then, like most monotonous and painful processes, the pain and monotony faded away into the process. I found a good method, stuck with it, cut myself a few times, tucked in my shirt, and then proceeded to kill my plate. I thought about getting it totally clean, and even got a little giddy at the idea of wiping it out completely, but as I got further into the demolition I began liking what bones were left when I printed. A very photocopyish look took over as the plate developed rolls and smoothed grooves, and I rather liked it. Unfortunately I kept killing until that passed and I was left with just a little bit left, and then I lost interest in it, printed it for the last time, and stopped.