Crows to Camels! (3rd off the hand press)

Okay, I went to the camel farm and saw all these really fascinating animals and then I was trying to get something on paper

to just get started back into making art.  It's very hard to get back to work after a move for some reason.  I dunno, dragging yourself half way across the world shouldn't be that big a deal, right?  On my own defense, I am getting better, I mean this is only my 4th week and  I have already produced something, questionable as it may be, that's pretty good considering it's usually taken a year or two to get back in the studio in the past after a major move like this! I'm feeling pretty good about that! This is not really what I had in mind for camel interpretation but I learned some things.  This is the first time I have worked directly with a brush painting an image on the plate.  I used a piece of Bahraini news paper as a Chine Colle' collage piece and unfortunately don't have any spray adhesive due to the fact that the shipping company wont' ship anything under pressure. Imagine that!  So, I used matt medium which is sort of wet and it made the paper stick to the plate instead of the printing paper.  I had to rewind and repress then heat the back of the paper with a hair dryer to get the  collage background piece to adhere to the paper and let go of the plate.  Ahhh, printing on the cutting edge!  LOL!  I feel sort of like the McGuiver of my personal art corner.

Seriously distracting view from my new studio!

Will have to get used to this view so I don't just stand gaping out the window with my mouth open all day.  LOL!

Greetings from Bahrain

Sorry for the long delay between posts. Have moved to Bahrain.  New art as soon as I get my studio set up.

2nd pull from hand press

I didn't really like this one at first but after hanging on my studio wall for a few days it has kind of grown on me.  Let me know what you think.
  I actually got a reversal of my small bird image by stamping the inked image onto some mylar and then transferring that to the plate.  It worked great and made it a lot easier than carving another stamp. I used the same method to get the words to print in the right direction.
   I also found a simple way to transfer my photo image to the stamp for carving.  I placed a piece of the mylar over the photo and traced it in with a marker.  I then laid the wet side down onto the carving material surface and rubbed it with my fingers to transfer the image.  So much easier than trying to trace it off!

First Monotype off of Hand Press!

This is my first hand pulled monotype and a photo of my set up. I got in a little bit of a hurry and  didn't get my registrations drawn in straight.  You can see how the plate is not straight on the paper.   I used my bird stamps again.  My studio space it not very big  and now I am layering work surfaces! LOL!  You can see in the lower photo the piece of foam core board with the ink and rollers up on the drafting table.  While I am inking the plate I have that down on top of the printing area.  Then when I am ready to print I lift the board to the drafting table so I can use the printing surface.  I pressed this with a metal rolling pin.  It worked great  and I even got the indention from the plate.  I am quite pleased especially considering how much trouble it was to get all the right stuff gathered for this deceptively  simple process.

Crow Stamps

I liked my crow photos that I put in my monotypes so much that I thought It might be interesting to have a stamp of them that I could include into an underpainting etc. in other works. They were fun to carve and very easy. I thought I would show them to you and the part of an underpainting in which I tried them out.  I may do a little more work on them as I see a few changes I would make.  I made a smaller version turned one way and then a larger version turned the other way.  I will probably make one with the profile image as well. These two images were printed by inking the stamp with acrylic paint.

More Monotypes

The color must be off  on one of these as the paper used is exactly the same and same color.

Pokrasso Class

Here are a couple of Mono types with Chine` Collage` that I learned how to do in the Ron Prokrasso Class I took last week.
Very interesting technique and new way (for me) to put images and paint to paper.
  I learned how to lay water compatible Akua intaglio inks onto an acrylic plate and run through a press with added collage pieces within the same printing process.
  Unfortunately, now I want a press.  Always something new out there to lust after.
  These two images were done from the same original plate.  The colors are much lighter after the first run through the press so then you take that "ghost " ink and rework it with more ink into another print.
  I have tried for a long time to get some good photos of crows but have only finally come up with these two images and one other that I also used in another print, on my phone camera. Go Figure!  Had to photo shop them just a bit and then sent them to my friend who printed them onto mulberry paper for me.  The tree image I printed myself on rice paper which crinkled up in my printer, thus the blank streaks which absolutely made the image work for me.  Talk about your happy accidents; Or as Pokrasso calls them "gifts".  Either way, works for me!

If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride

As requested, here is a better view of the sculpture from the last post.  My sculpture instructor and Mentor Madeline Wiener would be ashamed at the condition of this piece but she was and still is a fabulous teacher and mentor.  She now conducts the Marble Marble workshops in Marble Colorado where students come from all over the country to work on a piece of pure white marble from the quary that most of the monuments in Washington come from.  What a great experience to carve stone in the woods in the mountains of Colorado!  There are other sculptors that join her in instruction and of course they are all stellar as well.  I actually had the pleasure of learning directly from her in her garage in Aurora Colorado. What a great teacher and such lovely person.

Personal Critic

Well, lest I get too comfortable or confident there is always
a critic to sit atop my artwork and offer his personal opinion.
LOL!  This is an old piece in alabaster that sits in my front yard. It's getting pretty sugary now. I can't believe all the hours I spent wet sanding a perfectly smooth shine on this at one time.
This is titled "If wishes were horses..."   I don't know the name of the critic.