New growth...

The last of the etchings for a while...

Craving minestrone soup now!

This is the 'soft-ground abstract thing' I mentioned a few posts ago. I was cutting up and adding cabbage to some minestrone soup and rather liked the look of the cross-section. I knew I wanted to have one more etching for my portfolio, so decided to crank out one cabbage-inspired piece. Packed up the cabbage slice and sat it next to me at school while I drew into the soft-ground. Etched it that day and printed it at the next class.

The result is this funky-looking thing. The color was the Prof's idea. Three ink wipe. It's nothing spectacular, but for being a last-minute experiment with my fingers screaming at me to stop drawing... not terrible. Fully committed to the effect of soft-ground. The ballpoint pen drawing that went in to the making of this looks almost exactly like the print--only black.
I liked the black prints actually.  So, while I only had time to get about five of these triple-color ones, I pulled an extra black and this blue fellow. Leaning towards liking it better than the above version. Dunno.

Anyway! I named it 'Take Root'... and there ya have it.

Still struggling with the domain madness. Meh.
Got a finished copy of a CD I did the cover art for and it looks AWESOME!!! HUZZAH!
That's exciting.
Also exciting is what I'll be doing over winter break... transferring everything on my computer to my brand-spankin'-new computer. Sticking with a PC. Windows 7. Rather intimidated about the transfer process, since I'm so deeply embedded in this computer, which I've been using for like 10 years. It's a mess. XD

I'll be posting some old stuff over the break to keep things moving.

Change in the air...

I should be in bed. 3:17am. Eep!

Printing lab in seven hours, which means I have to be awake in five. Been up all night figuring out blogs and potential website domains. The HTML/CSS class has definitely shoved me in the direction of trying to get a real site up for my work... in a more commercial sense. So, yeah. The domain will be changing here, among other things.

Left: Wild abstract plate that took four long acid baths with soft-ground and different things painted out. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. Printed one proof with orange, which was kind of interesting.

Right: Science plate edition!

The main reason I'm going to the open lab is to print this puppy. I think I'm at six so far. Should get four more... if I don't sleep through the lab hours. Must sleep! The goal is four more Science editions plus I want to try a transparent roll with it. A different look. AND THEN, if I have time (and some extra brain cells) I want to do a couple more iterations of those deep bite abstract prints I did in the Spring. I had a vision of rolling them up with pale gray and an orange linear gradient stripe... can't shake it until I try it. Might not work with ink, but it looked awesome in Photoshop. We'll see.

Need to update my Flickr photostream and put that to better use.
Aigoo, so much to do!

Oh, and my fingers are still problematic... I'm just... yeah... pretty fed up...

Thanksgiving was nice, by the way. ^^
Bedtime!

Making science happen...

11.11.11 has come and gone.
Time for an etching update!
After completing the Shamisen edition I've been drawing and grounding plates and working on other projects. It's the kind of work that is totally unsatisfying because it's all of the in-between busy work in order to do the stuff you really want to do. Of course, it's necessary--and the process alone is enjoyable. It just can't compare to the feeling of results.
I started the Science plate by doing a simple line etch to get it to a 'coloring book' state. Then I made a rig and soft-grounded the plate. Registering the paper sketch to line up with the line-etched plate underneath was a bit of a headache, but an important one. I used a ballpoint pen, since it has given me a nice range in the past.

Put it in the acid for 20 minutes and came out with a really amazing looking piece of zinc.

Inked and printed two. One on proof paper, one on nice paper and the value was consistent.
Below is the original line etch from state #1... with state #2 beside it. Easily the hugest single leap I have made between states. I wanted high contrast. I wanted black, since all of my previous plates have been weak in that regard. I got both. It's a little messy still. A few things to scrape and burnish and touch-up. But frankly, I'm ecstatic.

It's definitely a print meant to be seen closely. From a distance, it is bold, but largely indecipherable. I'm totally cool with that. After I make those few tweaks I want to experiment with mixing some inks. I might try some greys or blues... or what I REALLY want to try, which is a blue to green gradient from top to bottom. Anyway, really pleased and excited to have an almost finished plate in two states. I am officially a soft-ground fangirl.

I also have a 9x9 inch zinc plate that I'm building up with soft-ground and abstract layers of ground. My Prof wanted me to do something really free and different. I'm at three layers so far. I'll etch in a layer or two more and then finally clean and print the thing. That one will be like unwrapping a present. I have absolutely no idea what it looks like.

Still pushing through a bunch of projects. Unfortunately, I started having finger problems just in the last week. One spot on my index finger again... the place where it has recurred the most. I have been vigilant about taping my fingers and wearing gloves and being careful. So, I think that officially rules out the previous possibilities of a latex or metal allergy.

So, just trying to breathe, stay positive about it... and deal.
The HTML/CSS class has helped me feel better about it actually. Learning a ton. I'm still at a very basic level, but compared to what I could do a few months ago.... yeah, no comparison.
Excited to print that abstract next week. Monday hopefully. And play with coloring For Science!

For the helluvit, here is my current assignment. We've just learned the box model and div elements. This is the first time I haven't gotten my CSS to validate. It's an issue with the two background images and I'm still trying to resolve it. Apple pie sounds so good right now.

Riiiiiiiiighhht. Okay!
Peace.

Rock'n'Roll...

She rocked the shamisen and I rolled the print transparently for the pseudo-Chine-collé look. Starting to flatten some of the burr now, but it's not bad! Pretty happy with the result. Next plate, ahoy!

And so much for the sunny weather all week. Even on Monday the day's forecast said cloudy with sun... it turned into multiple downpours and a lot of drizzle. Yeesh!
Today was hot though. Tomorrow will be hotter.

Copper love...

Weeeeeeeeeee!!!
I've taken four prints so far. The burr is standing strong, which bodes well as I more forward. Some background to add. Then the transfer onto the second plate, aquatint, and color decisions. Double-drop headaches beyond that.

Since I've found a method of taping my fingers that seems to prevent my swelling problems... I am a lot more inspired to work. Or at least I'm not as scared as I was.
I have three 'braincrack' plates sucking up grey matter.

• 'For science!'. A high contrast twist on the Tree of Life.
• 'Flight'. To a child, a large box is conveyer to every surreal landscape imaginable.
• 'Regatta'. A steampunk vision inspired by the yearly, local, and upcoming Handcar Regatta.

All three require a lot of drawing time. I would be happy if I could finish at least ONE of them before the end of the semester.

Getting a new 23" monitor for the computer. Excited!

Diablo III is in beta. So jealous watching some testers uploading gameplay videos. Eeee!
Too many projects going all at once. Needing to sprint to keep up. I might be headed for a youtube-worthy faceplant, but I'll just forge ahead anyhow!

<3

Playtime...

Semester #50281347538485
Fall '11
First project for etching is a copper/zinc duet. Drypoint on copper with either the theme of work or the theme of play. We will ink the drypoint and print it right onto the zinc. Drypoint the zinc a bit and eventually aquatint it to block in color... and double drop for the edition. Double dropping scares the bejeebus outta me. XD

Totally uninspired for the project, I browsed the interwebz and flikr. Found some lovely vintage Japanese photographs. Rather liked this woman playing shamisen. Trying to figure out who the original photographer is. Some related images were Tamamura, but I don't think this was.

Above left: raw scan of my copper plate after one session of the scratchy scratchy.
Above right: reversed and inverted in Photoshop to get a sense of where I am.

Still a lot more to do, but I'll take the first proof on Monday and keep at it. Still terrified of double dropping. I haven't even done a proper aquatint yet. Eeeeeeee.

Also taking HTML/CSS online. I guess we're building our student server site for two quarter classes. Decided to make my topic on etching since I'm up to my eyeballs in it anyway. Lately been working with a musician on album art... drawing hot air balloons. I might do a simple/different version for myself and make a soft-ground etch out of it. Mostly just loving the coding process. Tedious Allison loves tedium. And I'm almost choked on my drink when I opened a classmate's site. His topic is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Brony alert!

Parallel parking is fja;9i3edmkmcvaeeesfmvneie guh.

JYJ's album releasing on September 15th! Guess who already pre-ordered! Yeeeaaaahhh!

Each time 9/11 comes around my atheism surges and I have to watch beautiful things to calm myself down. Like this...



Love.

Summertime re-hash...

A quick followup to the Spring etchings. Two color variations of Rare Solace and Swelling Disruptions. I had so much fun with mixing the inks and trying different roll methods. I could've played with them for the whole semester. Sadly, I only had a few days.





I cranked out a bunch of the Astrolabe after adding some tones and the rosette on the left. The last few were bluish. I decided on the title, Nostalgia is a Precarious Navigator. I still feel like it needs more, but I'll let it rest for now.

A smattering...

Been a weird couple of weeks... psychologically. I won't go there. Ha.

Color prints! Crazy color prints!
Here we have Swelling Disruptions rolled with three colors. It features a red to orange radial gradient and a deep blue violet rolled haphazardly toward the edges. Oh, and the bevel is rolled, too. I've done a few variations with this inking. One is hanging in the display case outside our class, which has more orange, less purple. Apparently, the original black on white version is hanging in the Student Show at the gallery right now. I haven't gone down to look yet. I'm a bad art student.


A version of this one is also up in the gallery. Rare Solace rolled in blue, printed, and before cleaning the plate, rolled again. My deep etch plates are comparatively boring to the others in our class. Most people got a deep broad etch that they wiped and rolled in different colors and did the no-cleaning technique to get a series of 'ghost' prints. All kinds of beautiful variations and little surprises. Really interesting. I have variations of this with a lavender wipe below in one and a green roll in another. I'll probably mix up some more colors and try to get a few more crazy ones.



The end of the semester rush is starting to kick in. Lots of prints flying around the lab. I have felt really unproductive this go around, due to my hand problems, although four prints isn't terrible. The Seamstress has been a pain in the neck for weeks. She was a spur-of-the-moment idea I pursued for the challenge. Scraped, polished, burnished, scraped, added, subtracted, re-etched, rinsed, repeated... ugh. Still adding a chair on the right and a cat(?) sitting on that open spot to the left. Or birds? Or... some kind of animal. I keep changing my mind. And I keep making myself angry with bad scraping or things that change that I didn't want to change. What a headache. It's good for me though. I haven't ever fought with a plate as much as with this one.

A last project idea from the Prof. A 'collage' plate. Using soft-ground texture, normal needle drawing, and soft-ground drawing to make something that could resemble a page in a sketchbook. It's supposed to have:
-an area of texture in a corner
-an object in an adjacent corner
-a landscape entering from an edge
I broke the rules and just kinda went for it. I have one further state than this, where the details of the astrolabe are filled in. It needs another little circular object at the left edge to balance it. That'll happen this weekend. Maybe a little aquatint when I get back to the lab. We'll see. I'm just enjoying how free and floating it is so far. Not sure how much I'll develop it from here.

I also brought the giant history plate home with soft-ground and I want to get my drawing on it before Monday. That will be an undertaking. Oof.

As for the hand business. I think we've determined that I am allergic to something I'm working with. Possibilities include: zinc, nickel, chromium, latex, the powder in latex gloves, or something else that I don't know about. I stocked up on latex-free, powder-free gloves and have been wearing them constantly in class... even when I'm just drawing at home. While my fingers are still hyper-sensitive, I haven't had any more swelling episodes. Improvement! w00t.

I think I'll post up some of the stuff I've done in Illustrator soon for the hell of it.
Lahv lahv lahving that class.
Peace.

Detouring...

As promised.
First proofs! The color ones will come next week when I have variations to choose from. The lab on Wednesday was about 90 degrees. Oh my. Hail and rain all Spring Break and now it's an inferno. -_____-

Swelling Disruptions
rolled with a brayer only

Rare Solace
rolled with a brayer only

wiped with tarlatan only

Fingers are improving already. Yay.

etching in the deep...

We were presented with a process to try out. Paint out something non-representational. Let it dry thoroughly. Drop it in the deep bite bath for at least an hour. Clean the plate. Paint a new layer over top and repeat with maybe a half hour in the bath.

At the time I was going to start this, my fingers were rapidly swelling and unusable. So, both plates have a whole lot of left hand in them. Actually, this messy one is completely southpaw. The etch is deeper on it. So far, I've printed a proof in black and a couple in a deep green using only a brayer. No wipe. I think I did one with a yellow wipe and green roll, too. The print doesn't resemble the plate much, but the scan of the ragged metal looked so cool I had to post it. I'll scan my proofs next week.




I painted this one (left-handed) first and had it in the deep bite for a full three hours. You can kind of see the underlying pattern here. It was still shallow after all that time. Lol. We had some acid mixing issues over the last couple weeks. Someone's aquatint went nuts, too. Ouch. Anyway, that's when I started the messy one. I came back to this after I had printed the other and a couple of my fingers were improving. Very shakily did this concentric circle thing. I didn't know what I was doing... just letting my hand move. Then decided I liked the repetition and filled it out. Put it in the bath for about an hour, trying to keep it shallow enough that the lower level wouldn't disappear. Cleaned and took both a roll proof and a wipe proof. Looked pretty awesome in both. Came back to class after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and that's what everyone saw in it. Ugh. Not sure I want that association. At any rate, mixed some colors and did a pale lavender wipe with a transparent blue roll and it looked pretty great. My Prof got really excited. XD

Tweaking colors and layering the wipes/rolls of both will be the mission for the week back from Spring Break. I also have a 6x9-ish plate that I had to abandon while my hand freaked out. I'm calling it The Seamstress. Going to finish needling it over break and take the first proof when I get back. PLUS, there is the giant plate that I'm still planning. Since the topic has to be a 'historical event', I really want to do something Asian... Japanese or Korean... I'm leaning towards Korean. King Jeongjo and the Silhak scholars or something of the sort. Sungkyunkwan Scandal is sticking with me. I just found out it's on Hulu! Daebak! Re-watching happily.

Blah blah blah... a lot of work to do. Clearly.
Super glad to have my hand back. Trying to be gentle.
I have also fallen in love with Illustrator. Maybe I'll post some of those class projects eventually.
That's it! Crazy weather is crazy!
Late.

Rushing...

At the end of a semester in Etching, everyone is running around like a chicken with their head cut off... myself included. Trying to get those editions finished and last minute proofs through the blotters. It's cool to see the lab working like a well-oiled machine with everyone pushing out a ton of work. I finished/got sick of my grapes and moved on. Actually, I literally got sick. Massive head colds are not good times. Ugh. While I blew my nose into oblivion, I worked on a couple of plates.

First, a 9x12 zinc plate with a layer of soft-ground wax. The Prof. introduced us to this technique earlier in the semester. You make a rig for your plate with cardboard so it doesn't shift, then lay a piece of paper over top. I used charcoal paper, but generally you use something less dense. Then you draw right onto the paper and the marks you make get transferred into the wax ground on the plate. I used a ballpoint pen, since I'm so comfortable with them.


Got it to the lab without messing up the wax and dropped it in the acid for a while. I flat-etched mine for something like half an hour.

The result...

Having never used this technique before I was pretty blown away by how well it worked. It's not a great composition or anything, but WOW I didn't expect it to read the pressure with that detail. *amazed*
I added a bit more value in places and some very rapidly drawn branches (last printing day rush ^^) and kicked out a few of these.

It needs a lot of work, but I rather like the overall idea so I'll keep working on it when I have time in the Spring.

I took a little doodle from a sketchbook and put it on a tiny 4x5 plate. I haven't done anything abstract with any of my etchings, so I thought this would be fun. Not much to it. Only a couple of states, but I enjoy it. The blue is true to life. Very quickly mixed it thinking I might use it on the Scrub Jays above. I like it on this one though.

Needs some aquatint and further tweaking. Reactions from classmates were really interesting. It evoked very different images/ideas from each person. So...

what do you see?
:)

Backyard Bunch

Back to the grapes... that hardly look like grapes! Ha!
Too bad.
A couple of later proofs here in different inks with different wiping. The overlap of the grapes in the top right corner was a last-minute change. scrapeburnishscrapeburnishweeeeee.


The final edition has three ink colors. The overall green, the brown in the twigs, and a deeper blue-green for the touches of background. It's also printed on Arches Cover, which is a paper with a warm tone to it.

So glad to be done with this. Eesh. XD
Next, I'm working on a soft-ground drawing through charcoal paper and possible a tiny little plate if I have time. We only have four classes left. Time flies!

For the trees...

Here we go!
The transition from the portrait being scraped out and slowly turned into trees. I thought it would be fun to maintain some of the face, rather than scrape it out entirely.


This is probably the last print I got of it that was decent before the burr smoothed out. It's incomplete and not particularly strong, but the process was educational and I don't hate it.

A little steamy...

I editioned my grapes and brought a print home. I'll scan it tomorrow or Friday.

This was the last thing we did last semester. A woodblock print!
We each got a huge slab of pine shelving, drew up our sketches, and then got to carving.
It was so hard.
Oh, geez.
It takes some serious elbow grease to get through one of these things.
Brutal.
Our prompts for subject matter:
-cropped, no complete figures or objects
-evoke a sense (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell)
OR
-something related to the arts (theatrical, culinary, fine, etc.)
I chose the former.
My result...


I'm pretty adamant about using only my own sketches/photos for reference with school work, or anything that would potentially be sold. I didn't for this piece. Yep, I'm a thief. Since it was my first woodblock, experimental, and I knew I wouldn't be printing it much... I decided to do what I wanted. Definitely no profit for this one.


Hahaha.
Very glamorous shot of Yoochun, neh? Poor boy.
So, I blatantly stole Junsu's image.
I think this is an offshot from A-Nation 2008. The original is a video, so it's my own screencap.
Still a thief.
Heavily stylized and added to.
Still a thief.
But it's Jun-chaaaaaannnnnn! I can't resist! The quickest food-vacuum in Kpop! I must pay homage!

Practically broke my hands making the darn thing. I figured I should have an emotional investment if I was going to endure the physical strain. Haha!

When it was nearing completion my Prof made an aside comment that the figure's face was so boy-ish, while the hands looked like they belonged to a construction worker, pouring cement.
I laughed and agreed.
Internally, I was snorting/giggling/heehawing. I was thinking, 'good, an accurate portrait then!'
rofl.
Puppies, cuteness, and veiny hands.
Lovely bundle of contradictions.
/fangirl
*ahem*

Print-happy...

The blotters hadn't been changed, so I didn't bring home the grapes yet. I took one more print of it though. I'll have plenty to work with on next class.

But for now, I'll post some work from the spring semester of Printmaking.
We started with simple collages of found stuff, like cardboard, stickers, fabric, etc. I did a few, but it was so hard to get a feel for what was happening before printing.

I fished out a Mayan tablet from the internets. Interesting character glyphs. This one reminded me of the Simpsons. Ha. Blew it up, drew it on Bristol, exacto-knifed out a stencil and used it on this one. It's the only collage I did that looked semi-decent.

The first etching was a four and a half by six inch zinc plate. I took a cell-phone picture on the bus and used it for reference. I had been thinking of doing that big bus painting, but did this little etching first. Figuring this out was a mind-eff for me. I rely on what my eyes can see right in front of me when I'm drawing. The etching process kills that opportunity. The image will print reverse of what you're doing. The lights and darks are inverted. Wiping ink into and off the plate is a totally finesse/experience-based thing. And the acid is just... scary.

All things considered... I did okay. XD



Straight onto an 8x10 zinc. The assignment was to show texture, which I didn't really do.
Fail.
Took some pictures near Spring Lake. Went with this one. The whole plate was a learning process. A lot of, "okay, that didn't work"... and moving on. So, it has problems, but that's the way it goes.

Peace!

Getting fruity...

The tree drypoint was going well until the burr died. I took five prints, but they looked really weak. I'll scan one in and play with it some time.

Moving on.

We're back to a zinc etching for the 2nd plate. 8x10.
Our prof had us aim for something with a strong color theme. A field of color. A blue ocean scape, a red drape of fabric, a yellow honeycomb with bees... along those lines.

We had a large platter sitting in the kitchen filled with bunches of grapes picked from our little vine in the backyard. Grapes look kind of awesome when light shines through them. I took a bunch of photos, tweaked them in various ways in photoshop, found a crop I liked, and started sketching.

Last week, I pressed flattened grape leaves into a wax soft ground to get some texture. Next, I blocked out the highlights/tones with spraypaint through a stencil. Dropped it in the aquatint bath for a couple minutes. Re-ground the plate and started the drawing. Etched for 12 minutes. Took some proofs. The result was better than expected. Woo.
I reground it and over the weekend filled out the drawing crosshatching/stipling.
In lab today, etched it for 10 minutes, cleaned it, burnished more highlights and printed three. A deep burnt sienna on BFK, toned the ink a bit more for one on Fabriano, and finally whipped up some toned green on BFK for fun. They all looked pretty decent. I'll bring one home Wednesday to scan.

In the meantime, I brought the bare plate home to see what it would look like in the scanner.
Pretty odd. Ha.



The brighter stuff is etched more. When printed, it's dark. So, I inverted the whole thing.
Below is a little closer to what the prints looks like... but not. ^^


The real things will be... そろそろ COMING SOON!!!

Head-first...

A little late, but as promised. First etching of the semester. First on copper. First drypoint. Weeeeeee!
Our teacher had us try to 'trace' our own reflection in the copper, which is a totally disorienting experience if you've never tried it.

2nd state proof...
I swear, the first state looked like my mom. I started laughing as soon as I pulled it from the plate. Tweaked it a bit, hoping for something closer to me. It still looks too cartoony. *shrug*


Moving right along. I did about 12 total prints, from proof to edition. It took me forever to get a knack for the hand-wiping. This one is maybe a little under-wiped still, but I got the hang of it eventually.
The next is already in the works. He had us scrape out our portraits and go outside to get a plein-air drypoint of a tree on campus. I happened to be at this point in the process when it was about 96° last week. That was... rough. Ha!

I'm working on the 3rd state of that one. I invested in a diamond-tipped needle via Blick. I'm hoping it'll arrive before next class.

がんばります！