MARGARET GOSDEN

A HOAX IN MY NAME - SEE THE RUBY TUESDAY SNAPSHOTS POST>

2009-09-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

GLOBAL WARMING series - POLAR BEAR PERIL

2009-09-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

On thin ice due to global warming

Casein Collage - a print made from pouring Casein (milk-based ink) on to glass, over which is placed the paper. The results of varying textures depends on how thick or thin the consistency of the ink. Manipulation of both paper and ink and colours can achieve interesting abstract images, even before collage is considered as a way of creating a significant form.

THE BARTERED BRIDE

2009-09-03T06:21:00.000-07:00

Framed: 30" x 40"

I called this water colour of an iris The Bartered Bride - I am sure someone will come up with a Freudian interpretation for this conjunction of ideas! Including the fact that it was photographed, beautifully framed by my daughter, hanging over the fireplace, unavoidably reflecting the ceiling fixture.

Of course, Sarah's friends immediately think she owns a Georgia O'Keeffe painting! However, during my water colour painting phase, I was not consciously thinking O'Keeffe. At the time, I was taking a course in water colour painting, offered by an Asian artist, who insisted that we first handle the flowers themselves to feel and understand their structure.

So, the 'still life' consisted of a bunch of much handled cut flowers spread on a table - leaving us to create the still life. I could not keep an expressive form from the final pieces, as seen in The Dandelion. And, being a former tabloid reporter, the habit of provocative titling remains an irresistible addiction.

When a teenager, I was a self-taught water colour painter, and was often called upon to make posters for shopkeepers.

GLOBAL WARMING series - The Dandelion

2009-08-20T09:21:00.001-07:00

Enlarge all

The dandelion will grow anywhere and reflect whatever is in the soil that nurtures it. It grows from early spring to late autumn. Drastic measures are inspired to curb its proliferation,

a plant-type monster that swarms gardens, fields and paving with its flying seed-vessels

At one point I saw it as a metaphor as

a Dandy Lion because of its immense flamboyant nature! Then I read that this plant gets its name from the shape of its leaves. They look like a blunt arrow head with a white line running up the centre. The edges are cut up into huge teeth which are said to resemble the teeth of a lion. Hence, Dandelion.

or, as the Sun and Moon: the large yellow flower-heads made up of a great many separate little flower tubes, and the ball of starry down said to be one of the most beautiful things in the flower world.

This watercolour (Size: 30" x 40" framed) came about because I was thinking about the effects of Global Warming and how nature is forever transforming itself - adapting not only to what mankind puts into the soil, but also to evolutionary changes that occur as the world turns.

NUDES IN WOOD (Series #2)

2009-08-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

Size: 23" x 32"

Paper: Rice

This print, made from driftwood, already shaped on one side to suggest a torso, was executed on a Harold Wright press bed size of 30" x 48". The rice paper was folded to include a second shape to mirror the original shape on the right hand side. Similarly, for the left hand side, the shape was reversed (exagerated) to complete the torso illusion.

GLOBAL WARMING

2009-07-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

IS A NATURAL EVENT

NOT MAN-MADE

But there are man-made pollutants that effect life and plants.

Two different issues.

Media: watercolour

GONE FOR A FEW DAYS. BACK SOON.

BLACK-EYED SUSAN

2009-07-23T17:08:00.001-07:00

Only this one is red-eyed, with black eye-lashes!
(A comment on the changing environment)

Media: Watercolour

DRIFT WOOD SERIES - BLUE AND PINK ECLIPSE

2009-07-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

I had not realized, until I after I posted this image, that this week is total solar eclipse week, which the 'superstitious' and 'religious' (to quote A/P news) view as a sign of potential doom. On Wednesday, the moon will come between the earth and the sun, completely obscuring the sun.

What prompted me to post this image today, I do not know. Perhaps Reya in Washington DC

will have a comment!

Image size: 24 1/2" x 33 3/4" c. 1970s

Media: Found drift wood - 3 block combination

Paper: rice

Edition: monoprint, executed in different color combinations

Blue and Pink

AN UNFINISHED BRIDGE

2009-07-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

For Sharon, if she wants to be a printmaker!

Jack Perlmutter, Washington, DC. painter and printmaker, pioneered the first printmaking course at the Corcoran School of Art in 1964. The first class was all about woodcut because, at that time, an investment had not yet been made in a fully equipped workshop. For woodcut, all that was needed was a set of 12 cutting tools (99c), a piece of hard wood, and a magic marker for sketching. No fine art drawing expected here!

Briefly, a revival of interest in printmaking by artists in LA had begun to spread across the country, compelling universities and workshops to offer instruction. Perlmutter was Professor of Painting at the Corcoran and a professional lithographer at home. He soon developed a Department of Printmaking, one of the first on the east coast to pick up on what became a popular, inexpensive form of making art. For the next few years an explosion of experimental prints emerged, utilizing many different materials and papers.

Perlmutter was the first innovative art teacher that I had ever met. He liked to break the rules! Drawing to scale, as I had learned to do, painfully, at night schools in London, went out the window.

One day, visiting the Potomac Boat House: while husband John went sailing, I made a few clumsy looking sketches with my magic marker

Being new to the country and to Washington, DC. I did not know that I was sketching famed Key Bridge, spanning the Potomac river!

I loved the boating scene. The Sun Fish was a boat we enjoyed. But, first, he had to build his own catamaran! It took months.

Boat slips were expensive. We decided not to join a club. Eventually, we found Hains Point, a 300+ recreation park, located between Washington Channel and the Potomac river on the south side of the Tidal Basin. In those days it was a friendly area where you could launch a boat, sharing make shift facilities with others.

My detailed sketch for the bridge did not end up on the woodblock. The wood was so hard to gauge that cuts and blisters were all I could boast about. The steamboat was enough already! From that day on I used soft woods, having found out later in class that hard wood was a fetish of the old school!

So this woodcut is just, AN UNFINISHED BRIDGE. End of first lesson!

Jack Perlmutter, 86, died in 2006. He called himself an abstract realist. A Washington Post article once described him as, "a man of tremendous vitality, with the kind of alert, inquiring mind that extends the frontiers of the creative process".

He certainly did that for me.

NUDES IN WOOD

2009-07-12T05:26:00.000-07:00

This print was not executed on the press above, borrowed from my friend, master printmaker Dan Welden. This is a table-top press, the bed measuring 12 1/4" x 24". It is his favourite 'oldie'.

Image size: 23" x 32"

Paper: Rice

The press that I used for this print was a Harold Wright press, now belonging to my printmaker friend Mary Westring. The bed size, 30" x 48", was still not wide enough to print this 23" x 32" print. It was accomplished by folding the rice paper lengthwise to print the one, a found block on the left, three times.

Several variations on this theme were made.

AGAINST THE CURRENT - MAYOR DAVID DINKINS

2009-07-06T08:45:00.001-07:00

Image size: 12" x 15" approx.

Media: woodcut

Paper: rice

Monoprint

I am bringing out this print, AGAINST THE CURRENT, interpreting the difficult time the 106th Mayor of New York City, David Dinkins, had in governing from 1990 to 1993. This well meaning Mayor did what he had to do, but at the temporary cost of a kindlier and greener city. Various cultural group oppositions couldn't wait to spoil his long term good intentions.

As the first and only African American to hold the office (the only democrat to this day), he defeated Edward I. Koch in 1989. It was uphill work all the way, until Rudolph W. Giuliani, a republican, defeated him after his fourth term in office.

Dinkin's popularity declined as he was forced to overcome a $1.8 billion budget deficit when he entered office. Soon, however, the city had a $200 million dollar surplus but, by all accounts, his term was marked by polarizing events. Instead of achieving his pledge to heal the racial diversity, a "gorgeous mosaic" mix of people, with kindlier approaches than his predecessor (and crime actually declined in the last 36 months of his term), he failed because he was seen to be too weak and indecisive for the job. I hold my breath for President Obama. Yes, he can do it!

I think I was reading THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS by Albert Camus at the time!

DRIFTWOOD SERIES - AWASH by Brenda Bryant

2009-07-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

My long time friend, Brenda Bryant, who lives in New South Wales, has just written a haiku for the woodblock print DRIFTWOOD above, knowing how much I like the combination of haiku and imagery in Asian art. You can see it on her blog, nowadays called BryAntics

AWASH

The red sun sinks as the white moon rises.
I stand ankle-deep in the silvered water

That washes over the paling-pierced sand.

DRIFT WOOD SERIES

2009-06-30T06:35:00.001-07:00

Image size: 24 1/2" x 33 3/4" c. 1970s

Media: Found wood - 3 blocks combined

Paper: Rice paper

Edition: a monoprint, executed in different colour combinations

Living in a home, with a tiny beach as part of the backyard (overlooking the Great South Bay),

Long Island, found wet wood (the central black parts above) would often dry out into groovy textures for printing. Fortunately, I had a long press bed, so that I could add length to the 'view' I had in mind by using another groovy pine block to suggest the bay.

NO NUKES ANYWHERE

2009-06-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

MANTRA - No nukes anywhere

No nukes anywhere

Designs for an International Postage Stamp (c)

Image Size: 9" x 15"

Media: Casein monoprint collage

WORLD REFUGEE DAY - June 20

2009-06-18T06:09:00.001-07:00

(See previous posting May 9, 2009)

TO MARK WORLD REFUGEE DAY

In 2000, The United Nations Assembly decided that as from June 20, 2001, this day will be celebrated to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the State of Refugees

The Organization of African Unity had agreed for it to coincide with their African Refugee Day

SOULMATES

2009-06-13T08:24:00.001-07:00

Media: Woodcut

Image Size:

Paper: Hosho

Edition:

Date 1965

SOULMATES:

According to Aristophanes, in Plato's Symposium, ZEUS, fearing their power, split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete themselves.

SLIPPING GLIMPSES - UPDATE

2009-06-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Image size: 16" x 24" approx.

Paper: Mulberry

Edition: 5

Mixed Media: Found grained wood block center piece, and the 'Dry lithography' *technique, (impressions of wood grain cut out to create faux wood impressions).

*'Dry Lithography' was a technique using a toxic chemical that eventually was taken off the market - the term thus dubbed by artist, Bebe Dushey, who devoted the latter part of her life to producing 30" x 40" expressionist works, taught by the inventor, Harry Hoehn.

In 1973 Professor Harry Hoehn of C.W.Post, Long Island, published the "trouble-free" lithographic technique that he invented and taught. (Full text: American Artist and Crafts Horizon magazines, with illustrations by Harry Hoehn and James Lewiki).

The invention was based on the idea that oil and water do not mix, using a silicone product, then known as Dispersion #236 which, when applied to a dry surface, would reject lithographic ink. It was not meant to replace the lengthy traditional lithographic process, but to provide the artist with a similar effect with much less trouble.

UPDATE:

Since then, sensitized plates for new approaches to making prints have been manufactured, including the more successful etching SOLARPLATE technique, invented by Dan Welden of Long Island. Dan will be exhibiting a big show of his work for the next two months at Adelphi University, Garden City, Long Island.

AFTERMATH

2009-05-30T04:55:00.000-07:00

Image size: 14" x 13"

Edition: 25

Paper: Rice

Date: 1965c

COLOR WOODCUTS: Following the previous posted description of the making of a woodcut: if the print is of multiple colors, a separate wood block must be produced for each color. Careful registration (or alignment of image elements) of the separate blocks is key to a successful multi-colored print. The block must be re-inked for every print "pulled".

When it didn't work exactly as intended, AFTERMATH was still considered a successful subject for speculation!

TRAPEZING

2009-05-27T16:12:00.000-07:00

Media: Woodcut, using a very hard wood

Image Size: 12" x 14"

Paper: Hosho

Edition: 50 SOLD OUT

Date: 1966c

Memories of Sunfish sailing at Hains Point, a 300+ acre peninsula located between the Washington, DC. channel and the Potomac river, on the south side of the Tidal Basin.

Then, also, in Oyster Bay, Long Island.

Woodcuts are in the group of fine art prints called 'surface' prints. As the name implies, the image created is physically on the surface of a block of wood. The areas that are not to be printed, the "negative space"or "air" around the image, are removed using a variety of small, shaped gouges. Often the artist chooses to leave some of that negative space with bits of the surface wood untouched, adding interest and textures to the finished piece. After the image has been produced to the artist's satisfaction, a hand-held rubber roller is charged with ink and rolled over the surface of the wood block until the image is evenly inked. A flexible and absorbent paper, often a Japanese rice paper, is placed over the block and the back of the paper is gently and thoroughly rubbed, transferring the ink to the paper.

I preferred to use the back of a silver teaspoon because the silver is a soft metal. See the next post for making a color woodcut.

Text by my friend and printmaker, Mary Westring, who now owns my Harold Wright press in nearby Brooklyn.

VETERANS OF VIETNAM **Updates

2009-05-19T15:40:00.001-07:00

SURVIVORS

Image size: 15" x 20"

Media: Woodcut

Edition:

Paper: Dutch Etching

Date: 1064c

Our own veterans from the Vietnam war can still be seen, ill, sleeping and begging on the streets of NYC, albeit Refugees in their own country. Why is this?

*Go to 'Denial and the Real Cost of the War' by Sylvia from over the Hill for current views and heartbreaking effects of war on our soldiers.

**A good read on the aftermath of war, particularly 1918, is Pat Barker's REGENERATION - War and Peace, of Mind. An important, novel of destruction and rebuilding of the human mind from the point of view of a pshycotherapist and the patient.

*** And not forgetting Virginia Woolf's take on the war in Mrs. Dalloway.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

2009-05-15T14:16:00.001-07:00

Media: Woodcut

Size: 16" x 24"

Paper: Rice paper

Date: 1964c

Proof 1

The tragedy of the Vietnam War created what became a famous generation of photojournalists covering the war.

Sadly, Dutch photojournalist, Hugh Van Es, 67, died this morning, May 15, 2009, where he lived in Hong Kong with his wife. His pictures, and many like his, particularly those of villagers coldly termed 'collateral damage' by the military, inspired me to recreate the helpless plight of the devastated families, as in REFUGEES.

Ambiguously, Liberty's flame in this one, the shape of Vietnam, refers to Agent Orange, a defoliation agent then being used by the military to destroy forests, spraying the enemy, the innocent, and military alike - a deadly dioxin that resulted in terrible birth defects, life long injuries and deformities. The cross within it, a nod to the many sacrifices made in this war.

REFUGEES

2009-05-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

Media Woodcut,

Image size: 15" x 20"

Paper: Dutch Etching

Date: 1964c

There are always refugees. This woodcut was done in 1965c, during the Vietnam war that lasted from 1959-1975. It was inspired by news photographs of villagers leaving their homes. There have been many turbulant times everywhere since then, resulting in refugees.

Now, close to half a million 'refugees' (displaced civilians) are in camps, caught in the middle of a Pakistan desperately defending itself (and its nuclear capability) against a Taliban effort to dominate the region. The world relies on them to do so, short of participating.

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

2009-05-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

Image size: Approximately 12" x 12" (1982)

I was inspired more by the title of Keats's poem than by his elaborate poetic imagination.

Keats found his urn to be the perfect correlative for his persistent concern with the longing for permanence in a world of change. My print attempts to reflect a moment of intense Dionysian experience frozen, not in marble, but in a deeply embossed relief print. Later versions did become more elaborate, but I liked this one the best.

STEP FORM IN FIELD series

2009-04-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Image size: 23" x 25" (1982)

Recycled 99% handmade paper print

Step Form in Field series

HOT OUT TODAY - UPDATE

2009-04-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

Image Size: 23" x 25" (1982)

Recycled 99% acid free handmade paper print with embedded discarded printed papers, and brown paper bag.

Forms from THE DANCE previously shown. Shell impressions touched up with a little gold

paint.

April and May are the longest months for this to happen in NYC!

April 26 was the start of a few hot days in the 80s.

PARABOLA

2009-04-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

PARABOLA, or 'birth of a curve', so called because it is the plane section of an elliptic paraboloid.

Image size: 18" x 16" (1974c)

Made from two pieces of driftwood, the first one with horizontal grain and a conveniently located knot.

Black ink was rolled over the raised grain, and a print was made on mulberry paper. This was allowed to dry before applying an opaque white ink to the block, to overprint the black, to make a gray. A light, light yellow was added, horizontally across the center, in a third print stage to enhance circularity.

The second block was less grainy, a thin piece of wall board, the shape cut out with a jigsaw to the correct geometric measurement required for it to own to the title, PARABOLA. (Google

PARABOLA, then images, for diagrams and measurements)

This block was then inked in black, and the previous print, registered, was laid over the block and printed. Drying between each color application ensures a crisp looking image.

Go to rinklyrimes for a great comment on this work

PS Rinkly has drawn my attention to a photo posted on April 20, 2009, of an evening sky showing the formation of a parabola that echoes the shape of the woodcut, complete with moon. Go to: sylviafromoverthehill

OM

2009-04-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Recycled 99% pulped rag paper, (1982) This piece followed BREASTING THE WAVES seen earlier this year, February 28.

HAWAIIAN PUNCH

2009-04-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

Image size: 23" x 25"

Recycled rag paper, brown paper shopping bags and 'pulped labels' (top right hand corner), collected from the many cans of punch that were consumed by Harry and Sarah when they were very young. The miniature print was included because of its reminiscent coloring of the wrap around label, unpulped.

(Sculpture Garden Series)

LITTLE Ms. MUFFET (on looking back, then forward)

2009-04-04T05:49:00.000-07:00

Woodcut. May 17, 1964. Frank Getlein, Art Critic of the Star (Washington DC) said: "Among the prints that liven things up are District Artist M. Godsen's (sic) "Little Miss Muffet," which appears to be a variation on the theme used by Picasso in "Demoniselles d'Avignon." (sic)

(Sixty-seventh Annual National Exhibition of the Washington Water Color Association at the Smithsonian. In those days the WWCA included prints in its water color exhibits).

I was thrilled with the comment but, in retrospect, the connection remains a mystery to me, unless he was referring to the experimental restructuring of the traditional print format, and changed image of Muffet (intended), though it was not inspired by the ground breaking imagery of Les Demoiselles of d'Avignon of 1907. I did not read about Picasso until the mid 1970s when, belatedly, I got a 'formal' (pioneering a self-designed) interdisciplinary education at University Without Walls, Hofstra University, Long Island, NY, earning a B.A. degree.

LOOKING FORWARD TO April 17, 2009, New York Times and Roberta Smith on REASSESSING PICASSO:

Smith writes: "In his catalog essay Mr. Richardson writes that Picasso said that technique was important, 'on condition that one has so much ....that it completely ceases to exist.

But according to a short film playing in a small side gallery (at the Gagosian in Chelsea), Picasso also said that 'unless your picture goes wrong, it will be no good.' "

Well, I have an edition of Little Ms. Muffet that did go wrong that hasn't seen the light of day since! Perhaps, in my dotage, that should change!

THE MOON AND SIXPENCE

2009-03-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

Recycled Dutch etching paper. The English sixpence is now a collected currency. Will it all be just paper in the future.... giving the illusion of purchasing power. See the rime LOW FINANCE by Senior Stuff: Rinkley Rimes of March 27 2009.

UNTITLED

2009-03-26T15:33:00.001-07:00

Image size: 12" x 12"

Recycled handmade 99% acid free rag paper, string and match sticks, embossed

In response to BEIGE BEAUTY by Rinkly Rimes "'I'm RED!' you'll hear it jangle;"

WAR AND PEACE - Expanded story April 11, 2009

2009-03-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

Image size: approx. 24" x 22" (1982)

Media: Recycled rag paper, discarded b/w print pieces

with a miniature print of dove form in the center.

One of five in the Sculpture Garden Series - the title was appropriated at the time for this image as a succinct allusion to Leo Tolstoi's wordy but, none-the-less, great novel. I saw this image as a likeness in its parts.

As Virginia Woolf illustrates in her essay, Women and Fiction (1929), why women writers living in the 19th century did not write such novels "... remarkable novelists as they were, they were profoundly influenced by the fact that they were excluded by their sex from certain kinds of experience. "That experience has a great influence upon fiction is indisputable.....Take away all that Tolstoi knew of war as a soldier, of life and society as a rich young man whose education admitted him to all sort of experience, and 'War and Peace' would be incredibly impoverished."

See page 28 to read the entire essay in The Essays of Virginia Woolf {with notes} Vol. 5, edited by Stuart Clarke, Hogarth Press, 2009 - a great read and resource.

BEYOND SEQUENTIAL THOUGHT

2009-03-24T10:54:00.000-07:00

Image size: approximately 22" x 20"

Media: recycled rag paper

1 of 2 uniques

Note: this piece was substituted for another that was here.

THE MESSAGE by Rinkly Rimes

2009-03-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

My long time friend, Brenda Bryant, was very much taken with my piece called MESSAGE BY SEA MAIL of March 5th, and asked if she could put it to a rime. She did so in a very unexpected way, even to herself! It is one of her serious rimes and one to which many can relate. So do take flight to Rinkly's Rime of March 19 and enjoy what we like to call cross-pollinating!

STEP FORM IN FIELD, Sculpture Garden Series

2009-03-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

Enlarge, though this photo is not sharp - a temporary post

Recycled 99% acid free rag paper, brown paper bag, dried weeds and seeds.

The seeds sprouted in the sun, then died as the paper dried.

Image size: 24" x 22"

One of five in Sculpture Garden Series

DANCE, matrix

2009-03-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

Linocut. Variations on DANCE followed.

THE DANCE

2009-03-11T08:59:00.001-07:00

Image size: 23" x 22"

Media: Recycled 99% acid free handmade paper collage

Unique

PHOENIX

2009-03-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

*ENLARGE! ENLARGE! ENLARGE! (Click on Picture)

Media: Recycled rag paper, 99% acid free

Size: Framed 32" x 34"

Edition: 2/10 Each one varies in color combinations

Variation on previous center image theme.

*Enlarge to see actual colour and textural qualities.

Hand painted gold applied only.

NOTE COMMENTS

2009-03-07T05:51:00.000-08:00

LETTING GO (1)

Hand coloured etching

Image size: 17 1/2" x 26 3/4"

Monotype: 1 of 4 variations

Yesterday's print includes fragments from a proof pulled from an earlier etched plate, showing the original tumbling figures clearly here in the top right hand corner. Click picture to see detail.

Following the initial one color printing of the imagery, the information suggested additional printing without inking, then hand colouring the impressions to give it an elemental dimension, say, of ancient origins, as it turned out.

LETTING GO can evoke many a wishful feeling, but none so wishful in these modern times as that of having more autonomy. Neanderthal man (first appearing about 75,000 years ago) who travelled extensively, was surely neither hampered nor knew bias as he roamed and intermixed.

MESSAGE BY SEA MAIL

2009-03-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

Mixed media handmade paper collage

Size: 17 1/2" x 21"

"Unique" or, one of a kind

In a bottle, floating close to the beach in Southbourne, Bournemouth, UK, there was a note, written in French, meant to be found on the other side of the English Channel. In brief, I found a friend but, alas, being travelers, over the years, we have lost touch. She was a tall ships enthusiast, and loved to crew in them. Still looking for Gloria - where are you now, I wonder.

INTERACTIONS

2009-03-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

Mixed Media print

SIZE: 19" x 20" a/p 3

PAPER: Dutch Etching

As I was posting a blog about choreographer, Susan Vencl, on SNAPSHOTS today, I recalled the print above - a combination woodcut and cardboard cut.

Inspired by my plaster sculpture of Degas's 'La danse espagnole' throwing shadows on the wall - the woodcut, a relief technique (see comment), enabled me to cut the negative areas for the shadows, and the cardboard cut-out enabled me to impose the dancer in the foreground. The center panel is a portrait of the artist himself.

For Degas fans, an interesting read is DEGAS, The Artist's Mind by Theodore Reff (1987)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

BREASTING THE WAVES

2009-02-28T08:12:00.001-08:00

This is a finished, unique, handmade paper collage made, anticipating Breast Cancer Month, back in 1982. Personal planets.

In short, images of discarded prints were laid on to a window screen, on top of which was spread a layer of 99% acid free prepared rag paper pulp. The entire layer was hand pressed to squeeze out excess water, then set aside to dry in the sun. A previously made form was made to make the embossed impression in the center. The entire print, the collage discards having become part of the pulp-to-paper drying process, was run through press. Gold paint was applied to the deeply embossed circular area. See a comment question from blogger Rinkly Rime, and my answer.

Oops!

2009-02-25T08:30:00.001-08:00

Back soon. Stay Bookmarked!

Learning to fly is one thing. Getting a web page off the ground

is quite another, when this bird wants so much to fly! I am not giving up.

Oops! is a copper plate etching, a work in progress.

I used a lift ground method to make this image which offers a way to 'paint' an image directly on a clean plate, using a water soluble material. When dry, the entire plate and image is covered with a thin coat of liquid ground. When the ground is thoroughly dry, the plate is placed in a tepid water bath. The drawn areas lift off, exposing only those areas, leaving the negative areas protected by the ground. The open line or areas can then be bitten in acid.

A comprehensive book THE COMPLETE PRINTMAKER by John Ross/Clare Romano/Tim Ross (1990 The Free Press MacMillan) is wonderfully illustrated and covers many, many

bases for the budding printmaker.

WATER LILY

2009-02-23T04:46:00.000-08:00

Here is an experimental proof of an etching, a work in progress.

See comment. More proofs to come.

2009-02-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

BORDER PATROL

A Solarplate print, 7" x 5"

A media invented by master printmaker Dan Welden of

Long Island - the sun does the etching instead of acid,

hence "Solarplate", a very GREEN way to work!

THE ART OF DEMOCRACY

A project of the New York Society of Etchers

www.artofdemocracy.org A powerful exhibit recently shown at

The National Arts Club, NY in which BORDER PATROL was included.

PRINTMAKING IN THE SUN By Dan Welden and Pauline Muir is a well

illustrated guide using the Solarplate Method for artists who like to

make spontaneous and expressive images. (2001 Watson-Guptill Publications NY)

FAT CATS - Today, it is Fat Cat comeuppance!

2009-02-16T17:22:00.000-08:00

First, the magic marker sketch....

then the drawing is rearranged a tad, transferred to a linoleum matrix, and cut.

Later, two removable circular shapes were made within the matrix to allow for interrupting continuous line of drawing by turning them slightly before inking.

Multicolour prints were made, using transparant colours.

Media: Linocut

Multicolor monotypes - limited number available

It's a startling moment when clicking the image for detail!

The intaglio that follows is, of course, a quite

different story....

February 18, 2009

LOLLY WILLOWES

Media: Intaglio

Size: 18" x 12"

Edition: 20

Yes, LOLLY WILLOWES (or The Loving Huntsman) is the title of a novel by Sylvia Townsend Warner. It recounts the adventures of a 'middle-aged spinster' who becomes a witch. (1926 Viking) A black cat belonging to a friend of mine was named Lolly Willowes because she liked this title, and the book as well.