Monotypes

I went back to a print that I was frustrated with the other night, and decided to add some color to it using a monoprint process. The first few I just painted on the plate and transfered it to the paper. But a few of them I did several layers of rolling out color and then painting or removing color. After struggling with the structured nature of block printing in color, it felt very spontaneous.

Impressions at Sebastopol Center for the Arts

I visited the Sebastopol Center for the Arts yesterday to see their show "Impressions 2006", a collection of prints from various artists. The show is really great, a wonderful collection of different techniques and styles. One artist in particular caught my eye, Anthony Ryan had three pieces in the show, all of the woodcuts, and all of them very vibrant. Made me remember why I like printmaking. Image is one of the prints in the show, "Homeless Park, Green", from the Graphic arts workshop gallery

First Iron Chef print: what meat is this?

Here's the first of the iron chef prints. The image came from Iron Chef Chen's thrilling asparagus overtime battle. It's a three color print with some very transparent colors on Japanese paper. More asparagus to come.

San Pablo

I took a long walk today in the wind, rain, mud and occasional hail at San Pablo NWR. It's near Sear's Point, so in some places the roar of the race cars was a constant background. But it was full of birds and the views were nothing short of expansive. I've never seen so many avocet or marbled godwits in one place. The avocets were just starting to shift into breeding plumage. I did some sketches, but no paintings today. Here's a print I've been working on of an avocet. I'm starting to experiment with printing multiple blocks instead of reduction printing. So far my registration seems to be pretty good. But with this print I did this on a block of pine I had kicking around cause I thought the grain might be nice with the water pattern, but it made it hard to get the detail in the avocet. Every print is a learning experience.