Conversation With a Canyon I is done!

The Inky Stuff

Finished print I on the two-part series of canyons. Now that I'm "in" the canyon, I have to carve my way out. Here are all the printing photos of Lure Me In

Decided on the color scheme
now the real stuff, all Daniel Smith (RIP)
oil based inks

First proofs
the stripes are done a la poupee
another way of saying applied free-hand
with a tiny roller

The block inked and assembled,
ready to print

There we go, about 55 or so
paper is Rives BFK tan

Key block with all 
the definition

Overprinted the key block
in umber-purple-red-more-umber

Final prints, "Lure Me In"

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1000woodcuts Website: https://1000woodcuts.com 
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Collections

Working in a series

Most of my woodcuts aren't born alone. Usually when my brain is storming with ideas I think of waaaay too many to actually create, I need another Maria to keep up with myself.

Many artists work in a series, it's a way to explore an idea or concept fully, to get all the angles, create all the derivatives until the creative bug is exhausted.

I tend to begin with what I call "sketches" although I don't sketch on paper, I go right to the blocks! When developing ideas, I grab smaller blocks and begin with a pencil, usually working from memory but relying on model books (for figures) and maybe photos (for landscapes). Once the pencil roughs things out, I commit and use a permanent marker to settle the drawing. From there, it's just another little woodcut.

Here's a studio tip: I often print them together and then trim the paper after the ink dries. Saves time and makes the series of prints more cohesive to have them on the same type of paper and ink.

Figures and landscapes

Here are two such series from my website

Stay in touch!

Website: https://1000woodcuts.com

1000woodcuts Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/1000woodcuts 
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Maria's Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/1000woodcuts 
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Carving adventures in bas relief

What to do with all those woodblocks

Printmakers are the luckiest bunch in art. Tradition dictates we are the ones who reach the audiences with our multiple editions and relatively affordable artworks. Although some see the "limited edition" as an obstacle, I have learned through the years that any one image has a long life even at editions of 100 or less. And they sell better if they are limited in scope as people still see unlimited editions as "production work" or "reproductions" gasp! Right or not, that is the reality among the masses.

In the shallows, framed along side the last print

Yet another advantage of being a printmaker is that we can have a foot into the "one of a kind" world with our carved woodblocks. Long ago I learned that the same masses also love the unique and are willing to pay large sums to be the only one to own a piece of art.

So long ago I started selling my cancelled blocks to satisfy that craving. With over 600 images completed, that's a lot of woodblocks I don't have to store!

How I cancel and beautify woodblocks

Floating World II

Detail of Floating World II

Cancelling the blocks is a problem because invariably some wanna be artist comments: "oh so I can make prints from that if I buy it!?" Ummmm... not really, no...definitely not! I had to find a way that the blocks were unprintable. Tried many approaches, signing and dating in the front of the block, heavy polyurethane coating, stain and poly to fill the lines, leave the last inking to dry on the block to fill in the lines. All were good approaches and made the blocks look awesome, but this year I decided to transform my blocks even more and turn them into bas relief pieces. And oh how I love carving!

Here in pictures are some of my latest creations.

Fragile
This was a tedious undertaking, the block is just
9x9 inches. All I did is recede the background and
"round" the bodies to give them...er...body!
Finished the block with two coats of linseed oil,
second coat lightly tinted with cherry stain to give
the lines more depth

Moonshadow
This block needed 3 "layers" in bas relief speak.
Sky to be receded the most, moon rounded and in a middle
layer, and the lady-shadow to be the front layer.
Carving plank cherry is very involved, especially between
all those "cloud trails." 

Detail of the edge of the moon against
the sky layer. Trickery: the edges of one
layer against another get deeper carving
which gives the illusion of more depth contrast
between layers

After staining, sky got darker with an ebony stain and linseed oil.
Moon got lighter with iridescent pearl pigment mixed with oil, and
my lady received a very light coating of ebony, bronze pigment and
linseed oil. After the oil dried, I lightly buffed the whole block with
a soft cloth and gave it a polyurethane (satin finish) bath to seal
in the pigments.

Stay in touch!

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

A tiny festival? New works

Festival in the Pines

August 3-4 at The Retreat
(formerly the "new" lodge"
or The Resort, depending how old you are)
2755 Kyle Canyon Road Mt Charleston NV

Oh it's just a little one for Artisans residing in Mt Charleston Nevada or whereabouts. But I'm getting into matting a little, no framed works except 8x10s and just a few. Easy does it...I will be inside the lobby with my matted displays.

New stuff

Kind of getting into remakes of some older works, especially big ones that are near sold out. The online world is completely different from the "real" festival world,  in terms of visits, sales and resulting income. So we adapt to the little prints and some of my best selling works are getting "revisited" in smaller versions. Still original woodcuts as I am making some modifications and carving a completely new block or three, but smaller. The image is roughly the same.

Fun! Here is a tiny "Oculus" remade into "Fragile"

Print Title: Fragile

Paper Dimension: 10 x 10 inches

Image Dimension: 9 x 9 inches

Block: Cherrywood

Pigment or Ink: Gamblin and Daniel Smith

Paper: Daphne handmade

Edition: 100

Comments: "For all those born beneath an angry star

Lest we forget how fragile we are"

Those lyrics are from a Sting song, later I heard it by Jesse Cook. I am a loner and enjoy solitude but time and again I am reminded how very much I depend on and cherish connections with friends and family, however fragile they may be.

The image is a revisit of an early large print with some modifications...and a new tiny block of course.

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

Coordinating a Printmaker's Exchange

Addicted Collectors

Printmakers have traditionally exchanged prints since the dawn of printmaking. The fact that fine prints are produced in multiples leads to the side-effect that we enjoy sharing those extras with each other. 

As you may know, I am one of the fearless leaders of the printmaking group barenforum.org. We conduct quarterly exchanges and we are now on our happy 73rd exchange! I proudly own thousands of prints from all over the world.

Some of the prints from Exchange #72, Theme "Wings"

Bea Gold

Julio Rodriguez

Lindsay Schwartz

Martha Knox

Exchange Coordinator in Pictures

Coordinating requires some organization and much patience, here are the tasks:

-Communicate with 30 printmakers and crack the whip as the deadline nears

-Keep track of drop outs and problems

-Gather 30 sets of prints that come in the mail along with envelopes and return postage

-Collate sets of prints

-Print an information sheet with info for each print as sent by the artists and insert in each packet

-Mail the sets back to each artist

Sorted piles and cases ready

My two printers jammin...er
I mean, printing in sync

A finished set with information sheet in back,
Right hand is the spreadsheet that keeps me sane

Red line means DONE!

A little trip to the Post Office, always fun...

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

Tribute to barenforum.org

"We must, indeed, all hang together,

or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Printmaker Benjamin Franklin

Between traveling to festivals, making art, destroying my bathroom (see my facebook page), smelling the pines and all other activities that compose my very busy life, I delight in participating off and on in this rare creature we rare birds collectively call "baren". I just took great delight in catching up some of the online galleries of prints provided by the membership.

Baren or barenforum.org, is a loosely organized web-group of woodblock printmakers founded with these words: Chromoxylographers of the world - Unite! uttered by David Bull, our very energetic founding "father." His website can be seen here: http://www.woodblock.com/

See the info page here: http://barenforum.org/intro.html
Mostly we are a bunch of artist-printmakers who delight in the woodblock/woodcut process and enjoy exchanging prints. We (about 400 of us give or take at any point in time since 1999) have now exchanged prints 69 times and any one of us owns an astounding collection of more than 2,000 prints from artists all over the world.

We do this simply for the love of art, woodblock and each other. Many friendships have formed, many colleagues have come and gone, many side projects, some reunions, collaborations, exhibitions, a Facebook group, always the forum...list goes on and on.

Print Exchanges http://barenforum.org/exchange/exchanges.html

Aside from the exchange of ideas and images now taking place mostly in our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/121864389055/ 
the highlight of our happy barenforum.org group has been the exchange program. We basically sign up, we make as many prints as we have participants and we all end up with a nice portfolio of woodblock prints from all over the world. We do this stubbornly again and again since 1999, four times a year.

Some wise quotes by our members:

"Honest effort and honest communication, that's what counts;

given that, anything goes." - [Baren] member Bill Mixon 

"It's in the doing that questions are answered." - [Baren] member Phil Bivins 

"Cut! Print!" - [Baren] member Dave Bull 

"If you like doing something, isn't it better if it takes a long time?" -

[Baren] member Dave Bull 

"Jûnin Tôiro (Ten People, Ten Colours)" -

Japanese proverb 

"... I consider this discussion about ... what art is, appropriation, editioning, if digital prints are or not fine arts, the deathly sin of using a laser or any other modern tool, etc. ... a delightful waste of time." -

[Baren] member Horácio Soares Neto

Again, here are the galleries of prints, we hope you enjoy browsing:
http://barenforum.org/exchange/exchanges.html

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

Sneak a peek!

Update

I am now merely 80 prints from finishing, sore and tired but extremely delighted to be nearly done. As the printing continues, I have now a good print and a good photo of all the panels and so you may, yes you may, sneak a peek at our Peace Puzzle. I am uploading a large image in 72dpi so make sure you click on the image and view at your heart's content (about 2000 pixels wide). Say it very quietly "yaaahoooooo" shhhhhh...

Peace Puzzle 2015 - 160 international artists

Remaining Tasks

As I finish printing I am also putting together the book, going faster now but there are only 24 good hours in any given day or I would be going faster yet. Oh, and I sleep too! Seriously, very close now to being completely finished. Here are the tasks remaining, each of them taking a wee bit longer to complete than to list:

-Finish printing (roughly 3 days)

-Finish image composite in high resolution and send to printshop to make posters (by weekend)

-Finish colophon/book and send to Create Space (Amazon) to proof and print (another week or soish)

-Stamp all prints with our official Peace Puzzle 2015 stamp (half day)

-Collate 160 sets (the other half)

-Wait wait wait for book and posters to arrive back to me (...)

-Mail out 160 neat packages plus the backers (non-artists) packages (roughly 4 days)

-Go hiking in the Sierras like John Muir and come back six months later enlightened, skinny and with a long beard (six months)

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

Three more pieces, 112 in place

Cathie Crawford
Peoria, Illinois
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_jFEZZ9_S0  http://www.peoriacac.org/Directory/Cathy%20Crawford/Cathy%20Crawford.html

"Between September 1998 and September 2001 I lived in Jeddah Saudi Arabia.  I stumbled across Maria’s 1000 Woodcuts site when we finally got access to the Internet six months after arriving.  I was very impressed to say the least.    Thanks to Maria, I learned that baby oil is a much better cleanup option than the mineral spirits I had been using since I started my MFA in 1984.  My printmaking studio is now solvent free although I use oil based ink.
The summer before my husband’s job moved us to Jeddah, I started taking Arabic lessons.  The very first phrase I learned to say from my first Arabic teacher (my Lebanese friend from Qatar) seemed perfect for the Peace Puzzle.  A Sudanese student at Bradley University taught me the Arabic alphabet.   I was able to sound out and read the signs in the airport when I first arrived in Jeddah (while waiting for over an hour to clear customs).  Having the English translation underneath really helped.  For my piece of the Peace Puzzle, I decided to write the common Arabic greeting “Al sa-lahm a’a-LAY-koom” in Arabic calligraphy.  The literal translation of this common way to say “Good day” is “The Peace be upon you.”  This was how my Yemeni driver Mohammad greeted me everyday.  This was what I heard when I entered a stall in the souk (market).  This lovely phrase was a part of my everyday life in Jeddah.
First I needed to brush up on my Arabic calligraphy.  I have managed to draw out the phrase in Arabic calligraphy (on my second try) to fit my piece of the Peace Puzzle.  Now I must decide whether the letters should be white or black.  I wish I knew what my tiny block would be next to in this almost 4 by 9 foot printing matrix.  I guess that’s part of the surprise of what this collaborative project is all about."

Susan Rood
New Hartford, Connecticut USA

My vision of peace is people of all houses joining together with respect and friendship. (I probably have watched too many shows with names such as House of Cards. Game of Thrones and PBS Historical Dramas but it seems like foregoing competition based on lineage, beliefs and money would be good.)

Eileen Tavolacci

Redding, Connecticut, USA
www.eileentavolacci.com

"For many years, I participated in international kite-flying festivals. We came together from foreign lands to engage in one common love. We may not have understood each others' words, but we acted as One and shared great joy. 

It reminds me of the words sung by Crosby Stills Nash & Young:

""If you smile at me

 I will understand

 'cuz that is something

 Everybody

 Everywhere

 does in the same language....."" 

My heart

   My wish

      My hope

           = PEACE

Blessings to All

-Eileen Tavolacci

Redding, Connecticut, U.S.A."

Stay in touch!

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Maria's Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/1000woodcuts 
1000woodcuts YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/1000woodcuts/videos

Japan and Wyoming get together in peace

Artist's info link

Don't forget as you finish and mail your images to send in your information via this page:

http://1000woodcuts.blogspot.com/2015/03/peace-puzzle-information.html 

George Jarvis
Akita Japan                         

"Heiwa"" is peace.

Peace for the individual needs freedom from fear,

freedom from want, and freedom of expression.

Peace for a society needs a commitment to

unbiased truth and mutual respect.

George Jarvis "Heiwa"
Contribution for Peace Puzzle 2015

Sonia Jensen      surrounded by mountains in Wyoming
musselshell@silverstar.com        

Why is peace such a puzzle?  Why don't the "pieces" nations bring to "Peace Conferences" fit together? I believe that most of the 7 billion citizens of the world long for peace around the world.

Sonia Jensen
Peace Puzzle 2015

Stay in touch!

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Maria's Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/1000woodcuts 
1000woodcuts YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/1000woodcuts/videos

Welcome to Studio B

Framing Studio

I jokingly call my framing/shipping space StudioB. I needed a clean, cat-hair free, dust-free area where I could have packing and framing supplies and decided to dedicate the apartment we built for my Papi to those tasks. Here are a couple of shots of the matboard shelves, small print bins and the flat files (formerly called The Green Monster until I decided to paint it a more pleasant tan).

Mat board, plexi, metal frames on lef shelves
Framing and shipping supplies on right shelves

All my tiny woodcut prints organized

Flat files for larger prints and some of my cardboard
container collection

Framing Day!

That's kind of like training day but much much harder and tedious and basically boring until everything is dressed up and ready for a show. A show! I have a show! Whether festival or exhibit, always a joyous occasion to have my art "out there" for people to see.

Today I'm framing hand-made paper so I like to "float" and avoid the surrounding mat. However, to keep the glazing (acrylic for large works) off the yummy paper and print I use a spacer made out of foam board. Trial and error with many types of commercial spacers taught me that the cheapest and nicest looking is a simple foam board strip glued to the edge of the backing board.

Here are some pics:

Mounted print Grand Canyon III on acid-free foam board
this is a 30 x 40 inch mount

The foam board strip separators and Ph neutral white glue

Glued to edges, this is  a print called Precious Waters

Acrylic glazing resting on the foam board strip, away from the print

Add a label and a COA, wire and kapoof! just like that

Just Walk With Me, ready for market or show

That about the skinny of it, my Facebook page has an album with all the framed prints https://www.facebook.com/1000woodcuts. And! you can always come see the show at the Las Vegas City Hall 7th Floor, April 1st through June 22.

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