Really Big Prints!

I work really small.  Always have.  It's a comfortable size for me, and I love creating tiny cuts in the linoleum or wood.  But I do admire my friends and fellow artists who can work big.

Or in this case, REALLY big! This past July, my friend Bonnie deArteaga, a phenomenal printmaker who lives in Green Bay, asked me to be her assistant for this really fun event at UW-Manitowoc - Really Big Prints!

Forty-one prints were made for this event.  They were ENORMOUS - 5 feet by 3 feet!  That's 12 times larger than what I normally print (3"X5")!

And how, pray tell, might one print these large-scale prints?  With a steamroller, of course!  :D  That was one of the most fun parts of the day - seeing this road vehicle run over the prints!  Each time one would come up for printing, there'd be a crowd.  Fascinating!

Ben Rinehart, professor at Lawrence University in Appleton,
looks comfy on the steamroller.  :D

Because Bonnie is a total pro, she had the process down pat.  I helped by ironing these immense sheets of muslin that she printed on.   I also helped roll the ink, which was a workout in and of itself!

Bonnie and I doing a little pre-roller baren work!

Here's me, Bonnie (on the right), and Bonnie's husband Julio!
Such a fun day.  :D

I've saved the best for last - a peek at Bonnie's finished print!  It was inspired by her trip to the Alhambra in Spain, and the pigeons on the piazza.  Isn't it gorgeous?!

I am so lucky (and honored) that Bonnie asked me to be a part of this really fun day!  I learned a lot, met some great people, and got to spend a beautiful July day outside with some very dear people.  It doesn't get much better than that.  :D

If you're interested in learning more about the day, check out this half-hour documentary, created by UW-Manitowoc!  :D

Collagraphy - where have you been all my life? :D

Happy Monday, everyone! WOWIE - I can't believe it's been TWO MONTHS since I last posted! That's so wrong. This summer was so fun and busy - MANY printmaking adventures to talk about, so I'll be jamming my blog full of blog posts in the coming weeks! I've also taken a position as an artist-in-residence at Sheboygan North High School here in Wisconsin (Thanks, Frank Juarez!)! It's such a great gig - I get to practice my art in my own studio, and the faculty and students learn how to apply school subjects to a career in the visual arts! I'm having a blast, and I'll be blogging about the works I'll be creating during the next 8 weeks! :D

Because it's been so long since I've posted, I have to do a little backtracking - to late June. For two weekends in a row I was able to participate in fun classes at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. I've already talked about the APA Wayzgoose, which was SO fun, but the following weekend I took another class, called Chipboard, Linoleum, and other Simple Reproduction Techniques. It was taught by Dafi Kuhne, a Swiss printmaker who spent his summer touring the States and doing various artist-in-residencies all over the country.

Dafi likes to print with chipboard. And you should see some of his posters! When you view them, you just assume he either used wood type or he carved his own blocks.  NO!  They're done mainly with chipboard!  Check out this short video, where he shows how he locked up the design for his "Nachtschicht" poster!

One of the first questions he asked us was, what kind of answers were we looking for in the print? Did we want texture, full color, odd shapes? I'll be honest - it took me a while to get in this groove! Since I'm used to either using letterpress blocks to print or just carving my own images in lino or wood, it was a strange question. And like many classes I take, I don't fully grasp the concept until way later. (Does this happen to anyone else? It's probably why I learned the most from classes I nearly failed in school!)

I spent the summer ruminating on these questions.  Then, just last Wednesday, I realized from the books I'd been reading and art I'd been seeing that I'd actually been thinking about collagraphy the entire summer!  (See, it just takes me a while sometimes!)  Of COURSE!  So I did what I normally do when I have these "eureka" moments - I search on Pinterest and check out videos on YouTube!

There was one video I discovered that, despite its age, was extremely helpful.  It was done at Virginia Commonwealth University sometime in the early Seventies, and it's called "Harvey McWilliams: Collagraph Technique in Printmaking".  If you can get past the hilarious warping of the soundtrack in the beginning (and the fact that you'll have that music going through your head for a week), it's a low-key tutorial that's really easy to follow.  One of the best things about it is that there's no instruction - just that soundtrack.  It's so enjoyable that I keep it as a tab on my computer.

After seeing that video, I was inspired!  I set to work the next day, as I knew I had an entire day where I could just work in my studio.  I kept Dafi's questions in mind, and I also watched and re-watched the Harvey McWilliams video about 20 times to see his inking technique.  Sometimes, though, you just have to forge your own way, so I just got to it.

I knew I wanted to make a design for one of the bulletin boards in my classroom studio at Sheboygan North, so I made shapes that were much bigger than I'm used to creating.  I really enjoy ovals, for some reason, so I made a hollow oval and a smaller solid one, and printed them on regular old chipboard using both oil and water-based inks.  The photo at the top is just one part of the bulletin board, and it's my favorite part.  I can't wait to do more with this technique!  It's SO freeing!