FOUR!

There has been little or no printmaking taking place around here while waiting for a broken shoulder to mend.  The break was in mid-December, so we are pretty much healed and ready for rehab. Physical therapy (aka Extreme Interrogations of muscles and ligaments beyond what any human is expected to endure) starts this week.  I am such the wimp.

Meanwhile, however, while sitting around waiting for healing to occur I discovered The Pi Project which is a collaboration put together by local Vancouver (WA, not Canada) fiber/textile artist Sally Sellers.  Sally was clever enough to notice that March 3 of this year will be 3/14/15, the first digits of pi = 3.1415 ad infinitum, so she asked artists from all over the planet to make 9.5" square flags with any number from 1 - 0.  There was a great article on the project in our local paper, The Columbian , which explains it all.

Being temporarily one armed this was right up my alley and provided several evenings worth of entertainment.  First came Four:

And then came 0:

 

The ouroboros seemed to me to be the perfect representative for 0 -  you can't get much more circular than when you consume your own tail.  

Next on the agenda is a return to printmaking - first comes the sketch and then the decision: should it be woodblock or should it be etching?  Guess I should do the sketch first....

Startled Starling

When we left off we had two transparencies ready to expose.  We exposed and then had: 2  exposed plates which I'm sure I photographed, but can't find and so we're moving to the next bit.

First, the background plate was inked.  It may be hard to determine in this photo, but the dots are an aqua blue with a lime green surface roll.

Two stencils were cut, one with the bird, and the bird.  (Sorry, I forgot to rotate this one -)

 The one without the bird was placed on the inked background plate

And, then the one with the bird was inserted and the one without was removed leaving the bird stencil in place.  Now we're ready to print this plate leaving a white space for the bird.

A little ink has come through in the white space, but it won't matter since it will be covered by the bird.

Next, we ink the bird plate

And cut out the two chine collé pieces from very thin Japanese papers: (oops, forgot to rotate again!)

And, after applying glue to the wrong side of the papers, but placing glue side up, they are placed on the plate in the proper place where they will stay if they know what's good for them.

This is placed on the press bed in the registration jig aka blue masking tape:

And, the print paper with the background lowered into place, run through the press and voila!

We have a Superb Starling. 

Superb Starlings are all over Tanzania - like Seagulls at the beach.  Every rest stop is well populated as they scrounge for tidbits of dropped or discarded food.  But, they are gorgeous.  They are much more iridescent.  I was unable to get any combo of ink with gold powder, or mica, to achieve the desired effect, but maybe I can find a paper which will do the trick on my next trip to Portland.

A Little of Everything

If a person were to judge the activity here from the number of posts it would appear that most of the time there is absolute quiet.  However, even though we don't make much noise, several things have been on-going.  Firstly, there is the LaPierre Lane sign.  About 2, maybe 3, years ago hubby brought this poor bedraggled worn and soggy wooden sign in and asked if I could re-hab it.  Oh sure, I answered with fake confidence, and quickly stuck the thing under the press and forgot about it.  Maybe 6 months later I got it out and sanded it a bit.  At that point I began to realize just how much work was going to be involved and quickly stuck it back in its temporary home, under the press.  Now the several years passed and it accidentally surfaced again.  I decided it would make the perfect birthday gift for the guy who has everything, including me.  So, I set to work - and honestly, I wish I had a before picture because the transformation has been shocking, to say the least.  It involved a lot more sanding, which was infinitely easier to do once it had r-e-a-l-l-y dried.  And, then the fun began: first with the oil-based exterior primer where ever paint was going.  Then the staining for the background, followed by 3 coats of exterior latex paint (dark brown edge and back) and raw sienna (they call it cedar) for the lettering and last, but not least, 3 coats of Spar Varnish over the part that was stained.  The last of the varnish went on today, so it should be good and dry by next Wed., which is the Lucky Guy's 80th birthday. Unfortunately, he will not be surprised because he walked right by this thing half a dozen times and didn't notice it and then on the 7th time he saw it.  I should have known that my luck was not going to hold out indefinitely.

The origin of the sign is unknown.  It was something that the younger brother, Len, had at his house in Salmon Creek, Idaho.  When Len died his widow gave it to Mr. Lucky and he brought it home.  So, we don't know whose handiwork it is, nor do we know its age.  All we know is that now it is looking good and will hopefully last way past us.

Meanwhile, the other day I got the ladder out, moved a bunch of furniture and other stuff around, and hung the Puzzle Print "City of The World".  It consists of five 22" x 30" sheets, or a total of 30" x 110".  I don't know if there's any significance that the road in the middle heads off down to the bathroom door, but I choose to think that there just might be...

And, here is where the nonsense ends and the, more or less, serious work begins.  Below are two (you probably will have to take my word for this, two pieces of acetate with black ink.  The one on the left will be the background and the one on the right will be a Superb Starling (the ornithologist name for him, not mine - if I had my way he would not be in the Starling family -).  These will be exposed onto the solar plates  as soon as I get back to the studio.  And, then we will see if we can get a decent print to develop.  Or, it may end up a woodblock - but since this has a deadline and the holidays are nipping at my heels, I'm hoping to knock out a quick little intaglio. 

The Fantastic Fantastic Garden

Somehow time has flown by and I am just getting around to hanging the Fantastic Garden print.  I'm sure that I will enjoy it much more now that it is out of the drawers and up on the wall.  Hanging was not an easy project and definitely not for the faint of heart, or those of us who have our qualms about teetering on step stools on top of cabinets leaning precariously over exposure units thinking all the while that we are about to fall and break our neck.  But, the job is done and I am breathing again.  (Isn't it strange that when we put our bodies in peril, no matter how slight, we tend to hold our breath until back to normal footing?  You'd think we would be busy getting as much air in as possible, not keeping it out.  Oh, well.... that's what most of us do, anyway.)

I suppose to really appreciate the peril involved in this  activity you first must realize that the ceiling is at least 10 ft.  (I'm sure it is 15 ft. if it is an inch, but I'm told it is 10 ft. and he has made me a believer after all these years that he is always right.)  But, I was the one hanging in mid-air hanging the garden.   NEWS FLASH!!  This just in:  the ceiling is 12ft.  This is the first time in the history of Francis that he has been mistaken.  Not wrong, mind you, but a little mistaken.  There's a difference.

The Fantastic Garden is a puzzle print - the result of the organizational, drafting, cutting, sawing,  creative, herding, and printing skills of Maria Arango-Diener.  I've forgotten how many artists are involved, but they come from all over the globe and each contributes their idea of the project theme, in this case the Fantastic Garden, and then Maria re-assembles all the parts, prints them and sends us each a print.  This print is 4 sheets, each 22" x 30", so that would make the total surface 44" x 60" if my calculator doesn't lie.  Altogether it is a pretty fantastic woodblock print carved from cherry plywood and printed on Stonehenge Rising.

Thanks to all you wonderful Baren Forum woodblock members (and especially to Maria the Wonder Woman of the World of Woodblock) for enriching my life and making my studio Extraordinaire.  It will be even more extraordinaire when I get the City of the World up on the wall.  But, that will have to wait until next week - it will take me that long to drag the ladder back in again.

A Printmaker At Heart

A funny thing happened on my way to nowhere in the middle of the Serengeti last week.  My party and I were merrily bouncing along when we happened upon a Lion pair snoozing beside the road.  The moment we stopped moving they stopped napping and began inspecting our vehicles.  This could have been a Vehicle Emissions Test Station, but it was not so marked.  Mr. Lion continued his snooze, but his lady friend was intensely curious.  She was particularly enamored with the spare tire cover on the vehicle immediately preceding the one I was in.  I'm sure I could read her mind and she was saying:

 "Hummm, This is something new. I wonder how they did this, it is a very interesting effect.

Looking from this angle I think I can see how they did it.

Ahh, yes, first the tire and then this thing over it. Yes, I will have to try that.

But, for now, I think I'll just have a little snooze and think about it."

Now, if that doesn't sound like a printmaker I'll eat my Wildebeest.  We had to wait several minutes for this couple to get out from under the vehicles so we could be on our way to snapping photos of other beautiful creatures.  I must have roughly 652 photos of lions, although some of those could be elephants.  Some day I will have to count them, but for today, I think I'll snooze and think about it. There could be a print in there - in fact, I think there is......zzzzzzzz

Photo Finish

The ponies are headed for the finish line and with any luck at all, they will reach it today!  The latest incarnation involves playing in mica.  Well, why not?  The deadline is flexible so I can take as long as it takes, which is really quite a grand feeling!

There is some pesky trimming to be done, too - unfortunately, the fingers were not always pristinely clean when handling the paper.  Rats.  Here is a photo of the pony with his/her iridescent  circles - I hope they will show up on various monitors….

Now the only thing remaining is the clothing.  You didn't think I would send these babies out in the buff, did you?  Having already gone silly over this project, here is the finishing touch -

After the trimming and dressing are complete there will be the little matter of finding envelopes which fit.  Oh oh.  Probably should have thought about that quite some time ago.  And then there is also the story about this little pony to be written.  He/she has had quite an illustrious past and I'm sure everyone will want to know all the delicious details….. maybe not!  At any rate, I do hope everyone will enjoy this little fella as much as I've enjoyed putting it together and that it will bring you veritable downpours of good luck in many different forms.

Trouble at the OK Corral

This gift horse is quickly becoming the gift that keeps on giving.  Finally, I finished mucking about in the background and moved onto the blue and yay! it was time for red.  Such excitement in the corral, and then to my horrified eyes should appear - the part of the red block that I had mistakenly carved away.

The stripe on the saddle nearest the animal's head has no red.  I'm sure to the less obsessive compulsive of us this would not have mattered, but to the rest of us - well, this had to be remedied.  So, on comes the fake wood -  or to be more genteel, QuikWood, as it is known at McClain's.   Or, you can find a similar product at your local home improvement store.  I simply mixed a little ball of this wood putty stuff, flattened it to the right height, smushed it on the block where I'd made my mistake,  and when it was dry, carved the missing part back in.

Now all the stripes have their red part.  The purple line block has been printed again and everyone is in blotters drying.  Or eating, or sleeping, or whatever critters do when they are between blotters and weighted with a piece of plywood.  They will rest there until morning and then it will be on to the next step. I'm not hearing any noise from them - they must be resting peacefully.   I think we can surmise that the trouble at the corral is over.  For the moment.

Meanwhile, I need to run down to the local version of a yarn store and see if I can get the right size needles for the next knitting project.  It is a constant problem to keep me entertained and off the streets.