Fall Art Tour 2014

This year's Fall Art Tour will find my etching press squared up and working!

It happened in early summer.

I bought it new blankets, new ink and tarlatons.

Since my collagraphy class proposal was accepted at the Peninsula School of Art,

I had to remind myself how to print!

I got out the Art of Etching by E.S. Lumsden, the book I learned from at the Chicago Art Institute,

and read and practiced the printing chapters.

I got some hints and advice from a printer at Takach Paper, and another from McClains.

I went through lots of papers, and finally settled on a couple which worked wonderfully for my plates.

I printed...printed...printed...printed...printed...printed...printed...

and finally, I saw my abilities not only returned, but better than before.

NOW I could teach that collagraphy class, no problem.

I was armed, and ready for any kind of problems students magically present. 

SO....

After completing jobs promised to others,

and surviving the Peninsula School of Art's Guenzel Gallery Print Fair,

I've got a little time before welcoming the curious into my studio, #26,

October 17th through the 19th.   

COLLAGRAPHY!

These are not etchings...they are collagraphs.

SO excited!

Etching press squared up and working great!

These ARE the first proofs from the press in the new studio...

and with NEW blankets!

No, not the best photos, but they'd have to dry before flattening...

and I just didn't want to wait.

SO good to see this!

More later! 
 This next one...
I couldn't stop myself. 
I was just messing around....experimenting.

I should have known better.
I grabbed a too thin aluminum plate that was lumpy...
Bent, not straight...yes, lumpy.
I'll work to get a good print of it...
and never, ever use a lumpy, bent plate again!!

Rockets....1st state.

Collagraphy at the Peninsula School of Art...and MOWA

I've started a blog, LindaKelen-metalprints

where you can see what some of my collagraphs look like.

I'll be instructing how I do this at the Peninsula School of Art in July.

I follow the safety-first collagraphy system of 

Carol Robertson and Robert Adam's book 

INTAGLIO.

(My largest WhiteLine woodprint is in the MOWA show.)

Collagraphy

I've been working on spoons for so long and so intensely..
I needed something different..
I'm working on aluminum plates.
I miss drawing...and am doing something about it.

<-that's my press.

Since I don't have a gallery where my artings can usually be found,
I've started an Etsy Shop....LindaKelenArtings...
so, little by little there will be more and more to see there also.

the Religionator, Edition Variation 3, giclee 7/35

Archivally varnished, Giclee of hand colored collagraph print...

"Religionator in the Garden, Edition Variation #3"

with golden edges ...

words are hand printed on the back....

"7th in an edition of 35" written in pencil.

2.5" x 3.5"

The Religionator in the Garden

...or part of the Garden...
it's a very large Garden....

2.5"x3.5"...printed from scrap aluminum flashing

The Fall Art Tour is October 17-18-19....I am number "24".

Not Etching

Collagraphs.
5x7 collagraph, printed on RivesBFK

5x7 printed on Rives Lightweight

I'll demonstrate what I'm doing here at the FallArtTour.

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.

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
3.25x5" aluminum flashing
printed on rives lightweight

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".

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.

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