You're Steeping In It
Here's another recent print I made. The stats: "You're Steeping In It," 18" x 24", mixed media monoprint, 2009. If you want a larger look, click on the image and it'll take you through to my Flickr page...
This print marked a lot of firsts for me. It was my first monoprint. I had initially conceived of it as an etching, but I also wanted to get it into the juried student show, which gave me about a week and a half to complete it after I came up with the idea. Since it's also the largest print that I've ever done (and I knew that I wanted it to be rather large), I knew it was highly unlikely that I'd be able to complete an atching of that scale in that amount of time. As it turned out, it took only about two full days of work to complete it (which is deceiving - in printmaking, pieces usually move on a glacial pace, and it wasn't framed and ready to go until about 5 minutes before I got in my car to drive it over to the campus, at the very last drop-off time possible). So while I didn't spend a ton of time actually physically working on it, there was the resoaking and drying process to consider (I'd also never had to resoak a print in my bathtub because it wouldn't fit anywhere else). One thing I've definitely learned is how to make your work count - while there's a ridiculous amount of waiting around involved with this sort of thing, I'll spend that time working out what I want to do in my head. That way, when I put pen to paper (metaphorically, most of the time), there's not a ton of guess work involved.
Thankfully, I had worked out the techniques I wanted to use ahead of time. This one was unusual - the part of this piece that is the monoprint part is basically all the color, and that was done first. I very roughly blocked in the shapes, and all of the black was done with brush (I used both a sumi-e brush and my trusty Windsor & Newton series 7 #2 that all cartoonists know and love) and india ink on top of the color. From there, I used a white conte crayon to make Uncle Sam's hair white, and to give the tea bags a translucent look. I am pretty pleased with how this one came out, and I can definitely see myself doing more work in this vein in the near future.
I could also go on about the actual content of the piece and my motivations for it, but I think it's pretty clear how I feel about things. Instead, I'll just mention that now there's an easy way to find me on Facebook, and I can always use more friends. Also, I've been listening the hell out of Swervedriver's first album, Mezcal Head, and it's completely awesome. If you need some 90's alternative flavor that hasn't been driven into the ground by radio over the years, this would be an excellent album to have.
I'm out!
c.
This print marked a lot of firsts for me. It was my first monoprint. I had initially conceived of it as an etching, but I also wanted to get it into the juried student show, which gave me about a week and a half to complete it after I came up with the idea. Since it's also the largest print that I've ever done (and I knew that I wanted it to be rather large), I knew it was highly unlikely that I'd be able to complete an atching of that scale in that amount of time. As it turned out, it took only about two full days of work to complete it (which is deceiving - in printmaking, pieces usually move on a glacial pace, and it wasn't framed and ready to go until about 5 minutes before I got in my car to drive it over to the campus, at the very last drop-off time possible). So while I didn't spend a ton of time actually physically working on it, there was the resoaking and drying process to consider (I'd also never had to resoak a print in my bathtub because it wouldn't fit anywhere else). One thing I've definitely learned is how to make your work count - while there's a ridiculous amount of waiting around involved with this sort of thing, I'll spend that time working out what I want to do in my head. That way, when I put pen to paper (metaphorically, most of the time), there's not a ton of guess work involved.
Thankfully, I had worked out the techniques I wanted to use ahead of time. This one was unusual - the part of this piece that is the monoprint part is basically all the color, and that was done first. I very roughly blocked in the shapes, and all of the black was done with brush (I used both a sumi-e brush and my trusty Windsor & Newton series 7 #2 that all cartoonists know and love) and india ink on top of the color. From there, I used a white conte crayon to make Uncle Sam's hair white, and to give the tea bags a translucent look. I am pretty pleased with how this one came out, and I can definitely see myself doing more work in this vein in the near future.
I could also go on about the actual content of the piece and my motivations for it, but I think it's pretty clear how I feel about things. Instead, I'll just mention that now there's an easy way to find me on Facebook, and I can always use more friends. Also, I've been listening the hell out of Swervedriver's first album, Mezcal Head, and it's completely awesome. If you need some 90's alternative flavor that hasn't been driven into the ground by radio over the years, this would be an excellent album to have.
I'm out!
c.
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