1000 Woodcuts: relief print

Showing posts with label relief print. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Peace Puzzle on the web finally! Kindness awaits...

Peace Puzzle

I finally got around to dusting off my website skills (such as they are) and published a page with the Peace Puzzle 2015 images. This was our largest undertaking, 160 artists, 8 22x30 inch panels, massive!

Mounted on my studio table...
not me! the puzzle!!!

Here is the final image and a link to the website where you can browse all the panels:
http://1000woodcuts.com/projects/peacepuzzle/images.html

Peace Puzzle 2015

100 Acts of Kindness Awaits all of you!

Newest art-venture! In the spirit of peace and kindness, here is our next collaboration awaiting artists from all over the world to join us. Details:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1000woodcuts/100-acts-of-human-kindness?ref=7gs7uo

Stay in touch!

1000woodcuts Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/1000woodcuts
Maria's Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/maria.arango.diener
Maria's Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/1000woodcuts
1000woodcuts YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/1000woodcuts/videos

Friday, September 7, 2018

Some details on details

Couple of tiny details

You may not know this but a while back I started carving my "chop" and a small relevant Native American symbol on my prints. Tiny, very tiny, so as not to interfere with the design. Since most of my work is "dense" with many marks and especially many curvy marks, these have gone unnoticed. Someone who bought one of my prints noticed one and asked so I thought I would share with all.

A "chop" is a special marking to identify prints produced in their studio or shop. This marking is known as a “chop” and is either embossed or stamped somewhere on the print. Traditional Japanese woodblock prints, produced in large studios with many collaborators, often have several chops stamped on each print, one for the designer, one for the printer, and so on.

The tradition continues in many studios and many solo printmakers choose to add a chop to their works. Two examples:

Bill Ritchie's chop stamped
from carved wood stamps (guessing)

Tamarind Studio embossed chop with
adjacent printer's chop

My chops

Ever efficient and slightly dissonant with tradition, I usually carve my chop right on the block and let it print within the design. Because I don't want to disturb the compositions, the chops are tiny and often hidden within a whirlwind of my markings.

One chop I use is a simple rounded M with an A underneath, completing a circular design. My initials.

The other chop I often use is one of many Native American symbols. I have various books and cards full of them and have found many out on my hikes carved or painted in rocks around this area. Carved symbols or entire panels of Native art are called petroglyphs, many times the carvings are painted; sometimes erosion and nature's forces have changed the color of the carved portion against the surrounding rock. Painted panels are usually called pictographs and are a beauty to see, worn by the ages and telling of many stories of the ancient dwellers of the desert. Many panels have a combination of story telling and symbolism. Really fascinating stuff to learn.

Susan Glarion photographer, Newspaper Rock in Moab Utah

Here is my latest print highlighting the chop marks. The butterfly is Native symbol of everlasting life, the other chop is my initials MA in a circle. I add a different Native American symbol to my prints but always my initials.

Left bottom, butterfly symbol meaning
everlasting life

Right bottom, circular MA, my signature

Stay in touch!

Monday, July 10, 2017

Proofing...and back to the carving board!

Proofing

Never was much of a "proofer" until I started wood engraving, Corian engraving included. In standard woodcuts I tint the block and carve away and basically what you see is what you get with some little details having to be tweaked here and there.

When engraving, however, it is increasingly difficult to tell what a block will print like. Hopefully, I have trained myself to carve darker than I want the end print to be. If it is lighter, that means too much has been carved and...well, I'm stuck with it!

The block carved at last! Or maybe not,
three close ups follow

Age brings patience in art, I think. So here are the first proofs and a bunch of stuff to clean up, lighten up, brighten up, enhance and so on. As usual, I printed the last proof on clear mylar so that I can reverse and have an exact copy of my block; if you have been paying attention (ha!), you know what I mean. If not, dig through my blog and search for tricks and tips.

Proofs were pulled with my ball bearing baren (say that three times fast), which is an awesome tool with huge power to pull prints by hand. Takes almost no pressure, stays very flat, does not rip the paper and makes a nice whirl whirl sound as it pulls a print ("it" pulls a print driven my hand, that is). Corian gives up the ink very easily so very little is needed to get nice blacks and lots of detail, I'm using Gamblin black.

Back to carving, sky needs cleaning up, areas need light, road needs work, trees need detail, river needs cleaning...back to the carving board!

Proofs get darker and darker,
patience is key to good blacks without
gumming up the fine details

The proof on Mylar, gets reversed to mimic the block

Proof on newsprint (always so warm and cozy)
and the Mylar reversed

The block after cleanup, never again will it look
so beautiful as after the first carving..sigh

Stay in touch!

Friday, April 21, 2017

The case of the case

A little something for my Baren friends

I am coordinating Barenforum.org's Exchange #72 and decided to make some glorified paper holders for my fellow printmakers. This way all the prints are nice and neat in a "keepable" folio. Why not?!

Incidentally coordinating an exchange is most exciting and probably a lot of work but the good kind of work. The coordinator gets to see all the images first hand and often gets extra prints and cool cards and notes along with the prints.

Anyhow, here is the case construction in pictures for anyone who wants to make their own. I got the design from a book-binding book I own (one of many) and modified it to hold the 30 prints of this exchange.

neat linen paper

start out with clean sheet

a couple of prototypes

winning design cut in matboard
serves as a template

31 times cut along the border

cut pattern

few folds with a bone folder

folding

all ready to glue

I buy glue by the gallon!

some inserts to stiffen up the folder

covered up in matching paper

burnishing with bone folder

back finished

another insert for the front flap

brushed glue with sponge brush

folded and burnished

inner pocket for the prints

final touch!

Stay in touch!

Monday, October 17, 2016

All in the Details

Proofing

Confession! I'm not much of a proofer...when it comes to woodcuts, that is. But wood engravings are a bit more demanding, capriciously so. Wood engravings (not mine in particular) have tiny little lines that fool the viewer into thinking they see shading. Fooling the viewer is what art is all about, by the way.

So I am looking at this Creatures of the Night (or maybe In the Still of the Ni-ight...) with a magnifying lamp and all I see are little hash-marks, squares, lines everywhere...and what I see when I back up is a night scene with a cat and a lamp-post and an iron gate. Funny, that.

First set of proofs

First proofs on newsprint paper,
building up the ink slowly

Proof on clear plastic, I'll tell you why in a sec

Proofs, block and the clear plastic proof by the block

Nifty Secret Trick

Apparently nobody says "nifty" anymore...when proofing woodcuts and wood engravings I have gotten into the habit of printing a proof on clear plastic, any cheap clear plastic will do. I have a bunch of transparencies from the ancient times when people did presentations using projection screens, so I use them. Then I slap the plastic ink-side down on a piece of paper.

What this proof on clear plastic does is provide me an exact copy of the print, reversed so it matches the block. That way I don't have to think "oh that area is too dark, I have to reverse in my head and find it in the block". I just look at the clear plastic pasted onto a paper and I can see exactly how the print looks, reversed. Told you... nifty!

Second Set of Proofs

Slightly more carved, especially in the lighter areas,
around the cat, some bush edges more defined

Proof on better paper, getting there!
Still some tweaking to do

Second set of proofs on the actual paper that the print will be printed on. I am using two sets of paper, a fine printing paper from Daniel Smith (not producing paper anymore), and a paper called Superfine. The Daniel Smith paper is slightly grainier with a very slight tooth, which will give the print a slightly softer look. Superfine is a paper meant for letterpress book printing, very smooth, slightly ivory, really beautiful. The smoother surface shows every tiny detail with a minimum of ink, perfect for wood engravings.

Tomorrow, final tweaks and some press printing. So far I'm liking the results but there are some rough areas to clean up still. A wise man (James Pink) once said that the final details from the time you think you are done until you are actually done, can make all the difference in an artwork. Something like that.

I'm using a tiny etching press, most appropriate for a tiny wood engraving. Blankets, newsprint, ink, rollers, pressure...I set up everything late this evening so I could get right down to biznezz first thing in the morning.

Part trois yet to come!

Stay in touch!

Friday, October 14, 2016

A little wood engraving

New wood engraving

Out of this picture...

...a wood engraving is born!

We take the pibble-dog walking every night (and every day, and every morning...sigh) and it is now duskish-to-dark right after dinner time. I caught this feral en route to our feeders, no doubt, resting peacefully in front of my neighbor's gate. Cool, huh?

I thought so...so much that a print started rummaging through my scatter-brain. That's pretty much how they ALL start, in case you wonder.

Here is my work in progress. As you can see, I flipped the image and accommodated for the elongated paper size. Aside from that, the process of drawing simplifies the details and the process of carving even more so. What is left is the gist of the image, translated to woodcut-speak or in this case, a wood engraving.

I am using http://www.imcclains.com/ Resingrave. Resingrave is a synthetic resin plate made specifically for wood engraving. Takes ink well, gives very detailed prints. Only drawback is sometimes the edges of a carved line can crumble a bit under a larger tool's pressure so caution is needed when clearing out large areas.

More progress, some proofs and perhaps some paper notes next post, next week.

Engraving on Resingrave, resting on home-made leather support
Also shown some tools, a sharpening stone, and honing plate
So far, so cool...

Stay in touch!

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

A little print for a Barenforum.org exchange

Exchanging Prints

One of the wonderful things about being a printmaker is that there is a long tradition of exchanging prints with other artists. My collection of prints from fellow artists is now in the thousands! For the pleasure of getting someone else's artwork, we send some of our own. Beautiful.

Barenforum.org is a woodblock/woodcut printmaking loosely organized bunch of folk who have exchanged prints over the years. This particular exchange calls for a 10 x 7.5 inch print, no theme, 27 participants. Let's get to work.

Angry Skies

My inspiration this year is in the mundane. I walk nearly every day up, down and around a local park with pup in tow (or viceversa). This winter has been particularly blustery and many days the skies seem to show a lot of pent up energy, waiting to unload. Cold wind buffets my face as I snap a few bad reference pictures. Then on to the studio to capture the feeling.

The picture captions tell the rest of the tale so far.