My studio smells like HONEY!?

I began experimenting with Akua-Kolor inks with my last two moku-hanga prints of the Valley of Fire. They work exceptionally well for this traditional Japanese method, but I also wanted to try them in the Western roll'em'up'n'press'em method (that is a long technical term requiring more explanation than this blog can possibly get into).

The best part of Akua-Kolor is that my studio smells like honey when I hang up the prints to dry. It is the sweetest smell! Maybe I just like working consistently again.

Anyhow, nothing like a print exchange or seven to get the presses rolling, or the baren sweating, or whatever. So for my Baren Exchange #45 I decided to jump right into the thickener of things and roll out the Akua.
The colors are amazingly impressive, the purity of the transparency is just incredible; I can't think of another word for it. Here are some of the plates:

Oh, forgot, if you are in Barenforum.org Exchange #45 and like surprises, read the rest of the blog post with your eyes closed.

The theme was "maps" so I went "flying" over the earth until I found a neat spot (insert credit here to Google Earth). 

Key block on the right printed in violet/purple/umber containing all of the relief and some ancient petroglyph symbols thrown in for good measure.

Blue block on the left with the lake, river and anywhere I wanted blue or green.
So far, so cool...

Hansa Yellow on the right printed all over the areas surrounding the lake to make my brown eyes blue...er, to make some of my blue areas green.


The transparent sienna/orange plate was really a second state. After printing the first three plates, I wanted to "kill" the contrast a little and produce two more colors: a light sienna/orange over the cream paper and a slightly more rusty purple/umber over the open areas of the key block.

Next picture is the first three plates combined to make a "State 1" which really makes the blue POP!

And finally, the four plates combined to make "State 2" with the transparent rusty stuff all over. The blue still pops fine and there is more of a SW earth to it. Or something.

I haven't made my mind up which state I like best or which orientation I like best either. Looks good vertically too. Maybe I will sign it in all four directions and let the viewer place as they like it. The original reference is flipped but I liked it this way better.

I have a title this time:

36° 08' 45" N

114° 23' 49" W

Geographical Divides project is done...and needs a title!

Here it is drying away in my studio. My print for the Geographical Divides print exchange among Nevada printmakers is done!

And this is where YOU, the viewer comes in! I am totally blanked out on a title. Here is the background of the project in a nutshell (or go to http://geographicaldivides.blogspot.com/ ):

Nevada printmaker and prof Anne Hoff, along with the tireless Candace Nichol decided to organize a print exchange between Northern and Southern Nevada printmakers. Not content with a standard exchange of prints, ha, the project dictates that a N printmaker starts a block, sends to a S printmaker who works on it. Then the original N pmker modifies the image again, prints and sends to coordinator. Some artists worked together on their project, but some of us were, er...geographically divided.

So my partner Lynne and I worked without meeting and decided on the theme "rural meets urban", something we both live and watch. I sent Lynne four pieces of my block in the true spirit of a puzzle block; she carved them, I received them back and proceeded to make them fit into a pictorial "whole".

The result is below, I wanted to do something with topo map "feel" following the overall theme; thinking of an image is hard enough, but when faced with someone else's interpretation, the degree of difficulty is raised substantially. My M.O. is usually to make a unified "narrative" regardless of how many different pieces I'm faced with. Since Lynne pretty much took care of the "rural" bit, I proceeded to fit her critters with some urban grids and symbols, splashed some color here and there somewhere between topo and traffic light, and came up with a four state reduction.

Incidentally, for those of you who don't know, that is roughly (very roughly) the alignment of Las Vegas (South) and Reno (North) within the mountainous great state of Nevada.

Now that you know all about it, I need a danged title! "Untitled" just doesn't do anything for me...would you help?! Either comment or send me an email to 1000woodcuts AT gmail DOT com

Da print:

Last week at the Valley of Fire, it's getting HOT!

I've been visiting the Valley of Fire weekly to keep up with my show. This year the lizards seem to be in great health and, early in the morning, come out in the open to sun themselves and enjoy the morning I suppose, just like the rest of us. When I first get there and snap some quick pictures, the thing that strikes me the most is the absolute silence. My feet crunch the sand and the only sound when I stop is the breeze russling through the pods in the various bushes, now beginning to dry and drop to the ground.

This guy was about 18" long and must be in the welcoming committe, right at the visitor's center parking:

This will be the last week my work will be at the Valley of Fire. Below some pictures of my little display area.

More Progress on the Geographical Divides

Please see http://geographicaldivides.blogspot.com/ for all the other prints and artists.

My topo/puzzle idea came to life when I received Lynn's puzzle pieces. We had talked about keeping the individual images simple and I was pleased with her choice of imagery. Lynn will be pleased to know that the rat transplant went without a hitch (perhaps she can further explain that one!).

Just to refresh, we had gone with the theme urban/rural and how somehow we work things out with natural things when we live on the edge of a city (as Lynn does) or smack in the middle but with an acre of desert "elbow-room" as I do. On a bigger scale, of course, every city in Nevada deals with the issue of sprawling into the habitat of the few and hardy creatures with whom we share our beloved desert.


In any case, with Lynn's images in place, I started sketching in PhotoShop again. I wanted to keep the topo colors and somehow bring out the positive concept of sharing among urban/rural, rather than some of the more negative connotations that come to mind. I decided to add some urban elements since Lynn's critters pretty much took care of the rural part, and after some mulling and browsing, settled on semaphores (traffic lights for US folk :-). The "traffic lights" I picked had a hint of primitive symbols and, rendered in the topo colors, blend in quite nicely without losing meaning. Caution and courtesy, please, when urban and rural meet...

The computer is really a luxury when it comes to "sketching" and I don't use it often enough to develop my imagery. When I do, I find it most exciting to change imagery, save stages, tweak elements of design here and there, change color schemes...luxury!

I even changed the "paper" several times to see what the image would look like printed on various choices. Here is the almost-to-be-final image. I need to let it gel for a couple of days and then it should only be about another week or two for carving and printing. My Valley of Fire show concludes next week and I should be able to dedicate myself to this project fully and finish printing by the second week of July.

The sketch, reversed as it will be in print, a little messy in PhotoShop but will clean up and simplify nicely when printed because the woodcut process tends to do that. I think the colors will work well to represent both the topo features and the red/yellow/green of the traffic symbols. The "city grids" will probably also be finer and cleaner in line when cut on wood.
Comments welcomed!