Visiting Artist

I'm going to be a guest artist at Kari's Spring Break Camp at Water Street Studios. I'm going to have the kiddies make some foam relief prints. Above is a test print with some scrap foam. I think this project will work well for the kids.

Next month will bring a new visiting artist gig. I will be off to WIU to give a wood engraving workshop. It's going to be a real good time!! Thank you Lauren for setting this up!!! I owe you lots for this opportunity.

quick lil update

Hello! Happy Valentine's Day or Happy Singles Awareness Day, whichever strikes your fancy.
Keeping myself busy as usual.
I wrote a special note to myself and I'm being good so far about following it. Last Christmas I went nuts and knitted up a storm. The holidays are over now and I still want to knit and knit and knit! It's done two things to me: I'm becoming a yarn snob and it's really taking a toll on the productivity of making prints. So, I've limited my craftiness to the weekends and Stitch 'n Bitch nites. I can get a lot done on the weekends despite having to work. I sewed a case for my gravers. Nice and organized!

Printed this last night:

I think this is the first time I made a print with Linoleum. Sure easy to cut! Hand printed too. I like the way the fibers of the paper texturize the solid areas.

I think I've finally figured out how to marry the desire to knit and the need to make art. For at least one project. Gotta look for a funding source since this is going to be big and expensive. I'll leave this project a surprise. Tell ya later!

Teaching class is going well. I currently have a Color Relief Printmaking class in addition to the regular/black and white/beginning Relief Printmaking class. Color is going well. I split the class into projects: Chine-Colle, Reductive and Multiple block. I'll throw up some photos on here when my students finish their reductive blocks. They're looking pretty good! My students are an ambitious lot, getting very involved with the reductive process. I hope there will be time to get into the multiple block process.

In the regular Relief class, I have two returning students. One is working (very diligently) at getting the hang of showing depth and volume with his cuts. The other student I'm having make a object out of cardboard then create prints to paste onto the cardboard form. We're making flame throwers, yeah!

This year is going to be a busy one. Going to give a wood engraving workshop at WIU in April and then a week later, heading out to Corpus Christi to visit a friend and attend the Oso Bay Biennial at Texas A&M University in Corpus. After that is Frogman's in July for two weeks of amazingness.

Start of a New Class

Hey! Just poppin' in to post some pics from the first day of class.

Remember previous posts about my first class? I was so worried about my 13 yr old liking the class and struggling with the materials. Turns out he loves the class. He's back for the third time. I have two other students who want to come back but because of scheduling conflicts, they can't make it. So far it's just the two of us in the class. Private lessons, woooo!

Since this is his third class, I'm mixing it up. We're going to make sculptures which we will be pasting prints on the surface. I think it will be a good challenge to think about creating textures through the relief mark making process as well as constructing a 3-d object. I'm taking a lot of inspiration from Dennis McNett.

I'm also planning on collaborating with my student to make a piece for the upcoming Exquisite Corpse Show at Water Street Studios. It will be awesome!

Darius Hurley, a resident artist, popped by to check out the class. He very much likes the WolfBat hat I brought in as an example. I must give credit to awesome dude, Marco Camacho for his masterwork construction of this righteous hat.

While I'm on the topic of complimenting solid work, I am loving the Big-O OST by Toshihiko Sahashi. Big-O is an interesting anime as it is, think giant robot anime meets batman, but the music is quite amazing.

G'night, ev'rybody!!

To Frogman's and Back

Pro's is ready for our arrival

I have not posted in a while, but I've got a doozy of an event to introduce and explain. Imagine two weeks of Printmackin' and having a damn good time. That was Frogman's.

I had heard about it from many of the grad students at NIU and it sounded great. I got some help with funding from the Illinois Arts Council. It was a blast and I highly recommend going if you really are serious about printmaking. There are workshops every year and Jeremy Menard and the faculty do a really great job getting excellent printmakers from different backgrounds and skills together to teach their art. Frogman's is actually a printshop in Beresford, SD and the workshop takes place at the University of South Dakota.

There are many classes offered. I signed up for Wood engraving and Metal engraving. I know, a double dose of engraving, but the process of creating a plate or block and the printing process is different. Deborah Mae Broad and Jim Horton lead the wood engraving class. We had a large class of about 25 people. Deborah Mae and Jim are really nice people, and they were so good at showing us the technique and process.

Wilbur Whateley, 3x5" cut from a maplewood block

The second week was metal engraving taught by Oscar Gillespie. It's crazy how he puts these really gestural, flowing lines into his work. The burin has to be pushed hard through the metal. It's not hard to do but it takes some muscle to get the hang of it.

So, I had amazing teachers, and my fellow students were really interesting, hard-workers and very talented. The other half of the workshop is very much social. I hung out with some pretty awesome people. First, my suite-mates: Tessa Shackelford, Sun Young Lim, Laura Drapac and an honorary suite-mate since he spent much time with us Douglas Bosley. I think we all clicked very well. I hope they all come to Frogman's next year. No, I'm wagglin' my finger at y'all, You Better Come Back to Froggies Next Year!!! or I'll miss ya...

Group picture before our costumes fall apart dancing so hard at the Masquerade Ball

The evening social events were not without their shenanigans. Below are just a few of the crazy things from the Bowling Tournaments. Mmmmm, costume contest! I love it.

On the weekend between workshops, a large-ish group of us went out for some antiquing!

Did I mention earlier that I want to come back next year? 

Cause I do. 

This was awesome.

Double Posting - All the way

Here's a little peek at an etching I'm currently working on...

Needs to be darkened in some places. More drawing needs to be done. Maybe some aquatinting too. Scrape and burnish the edges.
When printing, I'll do some a la poupee and chine colle with some nice paper, ooooh!!

Class Work!

A few photos from the Relief Printmaking Class at Water Street Studios:

Super Blur

Ahhhh! It's the middle of May?! What happened to April?

My class has been going really well. I offered a two week extension for my Relief Printmaking class. All of my students have signed up for it! I think after the upcoming class in August, I'm going to offer the class in the Fall for 6 weeks from 4. The August class is already set in the books. I'll offer the extension right away to those students. Yes, I already know that I have people who plan on taking that August class.
My current students are doing such great work. These people who told me at the first day of class, that they can't draw. HA! Now they're making really cool stuff: taking on complicated, detailed imagery.

A few weeks ago, Water Street Studios juried the upcoming Summer Show. Lisa Gloria was the guest juror. It's an interesting process. I put a ton of prep work into it, stopping in everyday to take care of a few submissions at a time. We had over 50? 60? applicants. A lot. I spent 3 hours after my class working on applications, finishing them early. There was no panic, rushing. Real easy!

What I found the most interesting about the jurying process is the politics. I'd say that jurying is about 60% politics, 40% good art. Maybe I'm being generous?
Maybe it's not a good idea to cater your work to a juror like I've heard. Lisa is a very technical still life painter and she was knocking painters on technique and therefore, I believe that fewer paintings got in the show. She has less experience sculpting, printmaking, photographing etc which I think it was easier for her to like the pieces because she had no technical experience to seriously criticize them.

I probably shouldn't be talking about this because the drama is a thick fog in the gallery, and it will be around until after the opening. Maybe longer for some. People get upset when they get rejected from a juried show. Sometimes, there is hate mail. Oh boy, I loves the hate mail. Nothing's more interesting to read than an adult throwing an ego-sized tantrum! Entering in a juried show is a gamble. Some people understand the risk and handle a rejection notice maturely. Personally, I see it as either my aesthetics didn't jive with the jurors or I have to seriously reconsider my work.

I honestly have not been happy with the work I am making. I think that part of the problem is I am not making enough. I have a new series in mind, and I'm already writing a few ideas for it. I'm also doing a little photography project that has nothing to do with art shows or a body of work that I'd count in my portfolio. In fact, I have to get back to it, because it is a nice day out. Hopefully the light meter decides to work again!