Sunday, August 31, 2008

Carved Flames

These are being installed this afternoon
over the back wheels of a "Rascal Scooter"....I've been promised pictures of them in place.

hand-carved wood flamesabout 14-15" wide, 1" thick, hand carved, painted

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Collagraphy Experiments--two more

I was messing with the resists...
the top one was barely tacky...
the bottom one was absolutely dry.

(two 3.25"x5" aluminum flashing plates)

I wasn't so careful in putting the resist coatings on,
and left very slight ridges from the edges of the brush...
hardly visable when they dried, but they actually PRINT!
geez.....
ok, so I learned something else.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Collagraph for Auction

I'm still working with the collagraph idea from the book INTAGLIO....
donating this one to 4PeteSake along with a couple woodprints.

The Soil of the Red Planet is Toxic....collagraph
The Soil of the Red Planet is Toxic
3.25x5" aluminum flashing
printed on rives lightweight

Monday, August 11, 2008

Collagraph Experiments

I'm using the process from the book INTAGLIO...
not happy with two coats of Lascaux hard ground, topped with one of soft...
I went to 4 coats of hard ground and two of the soft.
I let each coat dry before the next
and let the whole mess dry overnight...
I've had problems with the grounds tearing/pulling....I believe my plates are clean, and properly prepared.

Once I wanted to see how easy it would be to get off an older experiment....
ha...no way...probably going to have to buy the Lascaux remover.

I've no idea if the soft ground is just the hard ground with additive to slow the drying...
but, it seems that it's easier to work/scratch through than their hard ground...
(this is definately not an etching needle gliding smoothly through hard ground on a polished plate)

Booger (also from next post) was done with the 2 & 1.

I recoated it with two more coats of the hard ground and another couple of the soft...
scratched through it when it was really dry and printed...Rives lightweight..

Toxic on the left is the best print (GraphicChemical paper) I could get with the 2 and 1....
a couple more coats of hard, and another two of the soft....
more scratching through...and the two prints on the left are what I got last night.

The one of me started with 4 coats of hard and two of the soft....
and the lines were deeper....


My problem is either in my printing...getting used to the press...
or I'm just needing practice...probably...
or maybe this is just what I'm going to get with this...
but, there is more information on the plates than is printing.

In the book is mention of finer pigmented ink for drypoints..
when wiping the plates...these feel like drypoints...especially in the blacks.

I'm using Graphic Chemical etching ink.
My plates are aluminum flashing....3.5" x 5".

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

First Collagraph Print

I need something that gives more immediate results than these metal poundings I've been doing.
Painting on the "shoe" piece is good....
the watercolors are good...
but, I'm needing to draw INTO something.
Etching would be perfect...wouldn't be wandering far from this metal thing I've got....
but I'm really not set up to etch plates....
so, using acrylic resists, and my trusty needle I started experimenting....and it feels good.
the muse, Booger 3.5x5,aluminum flashing printed on Rives LtWt.
>

Monday, August 04, 2008

Small Poundings

The amount of time each piece of metal holds is still an amazement to me....
These are a few of my small silver and copper poundings.

I'm learning to solder....
rivets are next....
and in between I'm trying to get a handle on Lascaux hard and soft grounds.
I really would love to do some etching,
I'm way not prepared to deal with etching....
but, in Robert Adam and Carol Robertson's book INTAGLIO, on page 164,
I see something that might give me some satisfaction....
so, experiments are beginning.