Proofs

I am not nearly as happy as I was earlier today before I printed proofs of the new blocks that I carved.  As I said, I carved the background much too deeply.  I am going to eliminate the background on the fish immediately.  I trimmed them up a bit, but at this point I am afraid of doing more harm than good.  The chickadee was carved from linoleum; the others from some kind of rubbery stuff that I got from Daniel Smith. Although the linoleum is a bit harder to carve, I seem to have a better success rate with it. I am printing with Daniel Smith oil based water soluble ink.  The bottom right shows some wine corks that I carved.  I would normally print those with paint but the ink was there.

It is a good thing that being a printmaker is not my goal, because I know my prints are far from perfect.  But once I add some stitching, maybe some beads, it will be fine.

Ready to Print!

I have been carving the past few days.  The idea was to get some new pieces ready before I set up to print.  So I have 5 blocks that are ready to proof.  I finally figure out that I have been carving the background much too deeply.  The Arctic tern block is the only one that I completed after making this discovery.  Of course, eventually I will cut away all of the background, but I like to print an edition with the background, first.

Chickadee




Arctic Terns



Alutiiq Petroglyph



Mirror Image King Salmon



Postcard Art

Little Bird

The Sky at Night

A local gallery holds a Postcard Art Show every February.  I have never entered before-intimidated by the small size.  This year I decided to give it a go and these are what I came up with.  Fun! 

Little Bird began as a block print on silk.  I added a wash of yellow and orange beads to the background, then fused the back, and applied the fused binding.  I am pleased with the hanging bracket-a twig, wire and beads.

The Sky at Night began with a piece of hand-dyed fabric.  I sewed lines of hand stitching across the cloth, gathered it as tightly as I could, then imersed it in dye.  The patterning is very subtle but once stitched and beaded I think it is effective.  I beaded a lacey border onto the fused binding then made the hanging wire by stringing beads on Aculon and making loops at the end for sewing it onto the quilt with crimp beads.

The show is at Emerald Island Framing and Gallery, with an opening reception on Friday evening.

Valentines

I have not been idle even though I have not posted in months.  I don't know exactly why I am doing this anyway.  I do have a couple of larger pieces in the works, but most recently I have been working on these little valentine quilts.  I carved the stamps and played around with the various paints that I have.  I really was surprised at how the paints layered-sometimes the first paint acting as a mask to subsequent layers.  I added some beads, fused a quote on the back, and applied a fast and dirty fused binding that I am not totally satisfied with but these are valentines, not great works of art.  Some day one of my grandkids will open a box full of all these silly things that I have made for them over the years and call to their brothers and sisters, "Hey, come see what I found!  Can you believe that crazy old Grandma made all this stuff."

Part of the exercise was to test my new sewing machine.  When I was in Anchorage for New Years I purchased a Bernina 440 QE. I have waited years for this.  I knew that I needed a Bernina but could never justify the expense before now.   I really have been to busy to play with it much-I have felt very virtuous that I have been tending to business rather than playing!  This project gave me a chance to play around with the stitch regulator.  It will take a while to become accustom to using that.  I knew that I loved my machine when I start using different metallic threads and she didn't eat them!

Anyway,  Happy Valentines Day to all of my friends.

Liz Mitchell Printmaking Workshop

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take another printmaking workshop, this time with a local artist named Liz Mitchell.  The picture above is a reduction print.  First I carved away the stars and printed with red and orange.  Next I carved away the Northern Lights and printed with blue.  Next I cut away everything but the mountains and printed with black.  We were printing with water soluble block printing ink.  I am not at all happy with the hand of the fabric and I am sure it is not permanent.  But, I believe that after it cures for a couple of weeks, it will be as permanent as it needs to be.  My worry is about stitching through three layers of paint.  Cool, but probably not a great technique for fiber even with different ink.

 I also carved this little bird.  Last summer my husband put a piece of plywood down on our front porch and covered it with bird seed.  What a mess, but so cool.  At any point in the day, there would be up to 20 little birds gathered.  This guy amongst them.  I didn't get any great prints in class.  The one above was about the best.  At home yesterday, I printed some more.  I wasn't happy with the eye and tried to carve it deeper-disaster!!  I destroyed my block.  Luckily I had another piece of linoleum so I recarved him.  The really stupid part is that I carved away the eye again!  Luckily with some E6000 I was able to glue the piece back in.  You can see the results below.  I tend to carve too deeply in the area directly surrounding the subject of the print.  Something to watch for next time.

 Now that I have printed this edition. with a background, I cut away the backgroud and have just the bird to print.  That is where the fun really begins!

These are prints I made with just the mountain that was left from my reduction print.  The contrast on the darker pieces is less than what I would like, but stitching will remedy that.  Now I just have to find an ink that I like.  The oil base ink that I used in the previous workshop I attended is permanent, and has a good hand but is difficult to work with and needs solvents for cleanup.  The water based inks are not permanent, dry very quickly on the plate so you have to work fast, and I don't like the feel of the paint on the fabric.  I have tried Versatex screen printing ink for fabric, and Jacquard fabric paints but they are too thin.  Any suggestions?

Holiday Market

The Booth

Silk Scarves

Hats

Beneath the Surface

Seascape

Salmon Spirals

Rockfish

Ornaments

Today, I decided to do something different.  I took out some of my practice fish prints, quilted them, cut them out, then finally did a beaded picot edge on them.  Pretty cute, I think!  I like the one on the right the best-I trimmed closer to the print.