Studiowork Saturday! American Robin linocut

Okay then!

I've been feeling a bit punky the last few days– a combination of changing weather and physical and mental tiredness, I think. I feel as though I've been packing and moving forever.

So none of that on Saturday! I did a couple of tasks first thing in the morning and then went off to spend the day in the new studio. No surprise, I guess, that I felt better than I have all week.

I finished carving the little robin and decided to go ahead and print it. Elvis (Press-ley, the baby press) got into the act because it was a large (for me) edition of 65 and only a single color.

The image was printed in a dark brown on a cream-ish Rives paper. The drying prints all show a frame, but that will be trimmed off once they are dry. I don't usually work this way, but it seemed prudent to have this extra material all the way around to support the press roller evenly across the block.

Here it is all trimmed up:

Technically these prints are a surprise, commissioned by an organization that shall for the moment remain nameless. (To help preserve the surprise.) They aren't going to be presented until December, so I'm hoping that if an intended recipient happens to be reading Brush and Baren now they will have forgotten all about this post and still be surprised when the time comes.

Fits and Starts (Mostly Fits)

Apparently getting the studio moved and set up before moving the rest of my belongings into storage was an idea that could have used some more scrutiny. Yes, it's nice to have the space more or less functional, but it's killing me that I can't get in there and USE it yet! Too much packing and moving still happening at home.

(Sigh.)

But all is not completely lost. Today I hit that stage of packing in which nothing either fits together or makes sense to be in the same box together, so I gleefully called a timeout and packed myself off to the studio.

As predicted, I abandoned the also-ill-conceived-but-desperate-to-carve-something piece I started last week and started something new. This is a commission piece, just black-and-white, but it's going to be a largeish edition (60+). I'm carving on unmounted lino because it seems prudent with an edition that size to enlist the help of Elvis* rather than baren print all of them.

 Tomorrow will bring a little more packing, a little more moving... and hopefully a little more carving.

* Elvis Press-ley is a Richeson "Baby" Press.

Not-so-Fieldywork Friday

Guess what this is:

Yep. It's a pile of lino-kanoodles. Guess where it was made.

Yep. Here! In the new Studio F!

Posh, isn't it? Maybe a wee bit too posh... I'm nervous about the carpet, but I bought another rug (Look! It matches! Sort of.) for the area directly under the print bench, so hopefully it will be okay.

That long surface on the far wall will ultimately hold computer, scanner, and printers. Right now it's just a lovely clear space. There's also a folding table that may or may not inhabit the center of the room. In a perfect world it will only come out when I need extra horizontal surface.

This room is roughly the same size as the one I came out of, with the minor problem of no closet storage. The biggest disadvantage is that this studio is again upstairs, so my big, heavy flat files for paper and print storage are not here. Thankfully the unit I have rented to store all my household goods is downstairs in this same facility, so the cabinets won't be far away. I've got some archival boxes to hold my immediate needs upstairs and will just get more exercise when I have to replenish.

The advantages include better light and a proper professional space to host the occasional open studio. And without the monstrous flat files taking up so much real estate I have more room to move about, stand back from the work AND give the drying rack its own wall.

And my one window has a pretty darn nice view, once you get past the industrial buildings below.

It will feel "homier" once there are prints drying on the rack and after the computer and its varied equipment gets in place it will feel like a versatile workspace. (My contract work requires a lot of computer time, and it's nice to be able to do bits and pieces while waiting for ink to dry.. or sneak a few minutes to carve in the middle of something more tedious.)

The one "lifestyle" change that I've yet to manage is that this space is far enough from where I'll be living that it's not convenient to just pop home for lunch. If I want to avoid too many trips to the nearby fast food joints (bleah) I'm going to have to plan ahead. No more random grazing trips to the fridge... which could be a good thing.

All things considered I think it will be an interesting new way to work. The carving I did today probably won't come to much... the design was thrown together without much thought... but I wanted to at least go through the motions of working to see what I might have overlooked in this setup. But I started to draw up a new seabird lino, and got a workable idea for a small print commission, and it felt good to be thinking about something other than packing and unpacking.

Closed for relocation

Today's the day... The bulk of my studio is stacked in the front room and friends are coming to help me shift it all to a new location. Feeling pretty anxious about the whole thing.... I hope I can settle into the new space quickly and get my printing groove on. I have work to do!

Linocut demo: Laughing Gull

This past weekend's "Wildlife Art and Wine" event at The Wildlife Experience in Denver was amazing! About 500 people came out for the evening, pretty spectacular for a first time exhibition. The show continues through January 5, 2014.

I was one of eight artists who gave short demonstrations during the event– I printed the final color on this small linocut of a laughing gull. At each stage I pulled one print from the run to help explain the process... here are all six steps shown together:

Click to embiggen

• Step 1: Light gray
• Step 2: Medium gray
• Step 3: Blue
• Step 4: Red (selective inking)
• Step 5: Dark gray
• Step 6: Black

Fieldwork Friday: prehistoric wonders (why not?)

Because sometimes you have to put aside the things you "should" be working on and draw something else entirely.

Edmontosaurus skull and Protostega gigas. Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

**So I just got back to town and checked this post on my computer... Gack! Apparently the Blogger app doesn't do a very good job of resizing photos. The previous image was supposed to be "medium-sized." But here's a replacement.. 

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Exhibition News: The Wildlife Experience in Art

Opening this weekend in Denver!

The Wildlife Experience in Art

The inaugural exhibition of the Rocky Mountain Animal Artists,

regional members of The Society of Animal Artists.

September 28, 2013 through January 5, 2014

at The Wildlife Experience

10035 Peoria Street, Parker, Colorado
1 mile east of I-25 on Lincoln Ave.

Two linocuts by SAA Signature Member Sherrie York (that's me!) are included in this juried exhibition. As an added bonus, I will be presenting a brief reduction linocut demonstration during the "Wildlife Art & Wine" event on Saturday, September 28. Event details and tickets are available from The Wildlife Experience website, or call 720-488-3344 for more information.

Here's a sneak preview of my demo piece. It's the fastest I ever put one together: first five colors down in a day! (How? Small format, simple design, very short print run.) All that's left to print is the black!

Linocut in progress: Puf-finale

Okay. Enough with the quail look.

I carved out the background and a few details in the puffin's body, and then ran another transparent gray over the entire block.

Puffin reduction linocut: Step 12

I debated a long time about that frame along the top, but because I had decided not to do anything further with the background wanted to give it a try. It seems a little assertive here, but there is one final dark to go and I think it will be okay.

Atlantic Puffin, reduction linocut, 9" x 6"
Final step. Maybe.

Sure enough, the frame is less assertive.

What's interesting is that the last color was a transparent black... which looks black in the puffin and brown in the rock. I expected it to stay warm in the rocks, but not THAT warm. I'm not sure how I feel about it... I might go back later and hit the bottom of these rocks with a transparent blue to push the base into shadow, but I'm content to sit with it for a few days this way.

In the meantime, I have to put together a quick demo piece this week for the "Wildlife Art and Wine" event at The Wildlife Experience on Saturday.

Don't they look cute in a little flock?

Linocut in progress: Rocking the puffin

I suppose I should say "rocking and skying the puffin," but that just sounds ridiculous.

After spending a day or two enjoying the relative success of the first steps of this linocut (and letting the ink dry), it was time to re-enter unknown territory.

Puffin reduction linocut, Step 9

The next step was a bit of a shock, since I'd become so attached to the harmonious grays of all the previous steps (except that silly bill, of course). Here comes the voice again: "You've ruined it!" But the sky is more blue, and the rocks have the start of some lichen.

Puffin reduction linocut, Step 10

Wow. This step was scanned rather than photographed. Clearly there's a wide difference in color interpretation. The truth is probably somewhere in between, as the only thing that changed in this step was the addition of the darker ochre.

Puffin reduction linocut, Step 11

Back to the phone camera. (Sigh) I tried to tweak this one in Photoshop... it's a little closer to the actual palette than the others.

This step revisited the background. I had big plans to do something really interesting there... it's supposed to be sea rather than sky... but the rocks were getting so busy that I decided any more activity would just be overkill. Additionally, I was feeling some time pressure and had started to add some dryer to my inks. This speeds up the process... but it also can cause some issues with the way ink behaves. This felt like the limit of what the background would accept gracefully.

Everything feels quite awkward again. I wanted that blended background but I didn't want an extra layer of ink to influence the last two steps of the bird, so each time I inked the block I stopped and wiped sections clean before printing. The leading edge of the rock was wiped, no problem. The puffin, however, looks like a quail. I wiped the ink out of most of its body, but not from its tail, neck, or mantle before printing. I promise this will all work out in the end, but for the moment it looks very silly, doesn't it?

Linocut in progress: The pause before more awkwardness

One more transparent gray to give some dimension to the puffin's bill and tie everything back together.

Atlantic puffin: reduction linocut, Step 8

A close-up of the head to show you what I mean:

From here I think it's time to put some blue in the upper background and work those rocks some more. I think it's going to get pretty ugly before it looks good!

Linocut in progress: That awkward stage

Well, one of several potentially awkward stages, at least.

The danger in getting too pleased with an image when there are just three gray values printed is that subsequent stages can scream "You've ruined it!" when in fact it's not true.

Case in point: "Ugly Puffling Stage: The beak."

Part of the charm of a puffin is its bright, chunky, ridiculous bill. These colors don't really appear anywhere else in the image, so a little selective inking will hopefully keep the awkwardness contained. As usual, I cut a mask from clear acetate (which barely shows in this photo).

And now the first shout of "You've ruined it!"

Puffin, reduction linocut, Step 4

It looks completely awkward, doesn't it? The next step didn't help.

Puffin, reduction linocut, Step 5

Nor did the next, which required the cutting of a new mask that included the feet and eye.

Puffin, reduction linocut, Step 6

It's certainly clearly a puffin now, but YIKES! These shapes look clunky. And of course the bright colors against those nice, subtle grays seem totally out of place. But fear not!

Puffin, reduction linocut, Step 7

Another gray to the rescue. This color will only stay in the bill area because of course the eye and the top of the head will be black(ish), but it was a bit of a relief (printmaker pun) to feel the bird pull back together again.

I think the next steps are to hack away at some of the rock, clear out the bird's upper mandible, and run another transparent gray over the entire block. From there I''m undecided about whether to work the background next or the rest of the rock. I suspect it will be rock.