Beach please...

Quick check-in.
My brother saw a painting somewhere, took a picture of it, and requested I re-create it.

Thusly...

It's becoming a thing.

Likely hard to discern at this state, but it's a overhead view of a beach. As if shot straight down from a drone/quadcopter. Waves lapping up. Beach-goers with blankets and umbrellas. Surfers wading out. Palm trees.

I have no idea who the original artist was. Also don't really know what the medium was. The picture my bro sent looked like a painting that was printed on a canvas with some vague craquelure effect on it. A bit strange.

So I'm using acrylics in a watercolor-ish manner. Multiple transparent layers, glazes, starting messy and becoming more careful as I progress. I've never painted something quite this big before. Not as my own piece alone at least. I've done smaller parts of big murals. But this sucker is 60x40. Bananas for scale in the first shot. Lol. It comes up to my eyes.

Trying to only do one layer every couple of days to keep my fingers from freaking out. Doing okay so far.

Cracked up watching the opening ceremony for the Rio Olympics. In one of the first video montages there are a bunch of overhead shots exactly like this one. Funny coincidence.

Also got an idea for a Project for Awesome Art contribution.
More on that later.

Picked a few of the first burgundy beans out of our garden yesterday.
Yay, veg!

Pieces of Autumn...

Played around with the Paper Weavings Art Assignment. Had this stack of old origami-style paper with metallic gold on its colored side. Normal picture on the left. The weaving posted in a sunny window on the right. Neato.

More accurate representation of the shiny gold paper on the left and what the back of the weaving looks like on the right. I dunno... I think the back might be the best part. Lol.

Currently preparing some cleaned up versions of older work so they're print-ready.

Also currently on the Bernie Sanders hype train. Choo choo.

Also enjoying all the super hero/comic book shows coming back. 2nd episode of Arrow was killer. Debating whether I can handle another season of Daredevil on Netflix violence-wise. Jessica Jones as well. Super Girl looks like it could be awesome or terrible.

Also JUNSU TEASER!

APOCALYPTIC AF!

Looks like the imagery is inspired from Revelation 9.

I'm down! So excited.

Sora has this awkward tail feather that was probably supposed to molt off like normal, but has been there for almost a month. Dead grey and thrashed a bit... jutting out oddly. Doesn't seem to be messing up her flight or anything, but I'm a wee bit concerned. Shake ya tail feather, girl!

Also DBSK/JYJ fandom crapped its pants over the last couple weeks due to Jaejoong and Yunho meeting in public. Amicably. Meltdowns. Meltdowns everywhere.

Interesting development. Veerrrry interesting.

Done and dusted...

45 completed.
WOO!
They're packaged in groups of three and on their way to the P4A perks gathering place. Took about a month of work. Many continuous hours over the last two weeks. Abused my body in the process. A vicious knot over my right shoulder blade. Neck aching. Sleep-deprived. Too sedentary. And my fingers are all wrecked, thumb included. I won't be doing any art for the next two weeks. At least nothing that requires holding a tool of some sort. Might do some Illustrator work since it's just clicking paths into place. I'm typing this entirely with my left hand at the moment. Lol.

Totally worth it though. The Project for Awesome will be in a couple weeks. I'm very happy to contribute to the cause.

Here are some highlights out of the 45.

It's all Vlogbrothers/Nerdfighter stuff. I'm really pleased with the results.

The packaging is cute, too. Little brown paper envelopes with handmade stickers to close.

That's the look of glorious victory.

And also aching fingers. XD
I've even been taping my thumb, which is super tricky to do with the need for so much bend at the knuckle. It's quite furious with me, to say the least.

While working on this, I was reminded that most folks don't have to worry about using scissors or pencils for a few minutes. And also that I used to not have to worry about it. I went 20 some-odd years without having to limit tool use, and now I can hardly relate to what that must have been like.

Sad thoughts.

I'm now in the indecisive mode of how to encourage healing. Tight taping to stifle swelling? No taping? Heat soaks? Ice? Pure rest? Normal use? I wish I knew what it was. I'm tempted to take prednisone, which I know works, but the side-effects are miserable.

Just gonna tough it out and monitor recovery along the way.

FINGER STATUS

Little epicenters everywhere. My pinkie is the first to be fully swelling. Can't bend it much. Ring finger looks like I took a hammer to it. Small puffy spots on the middle finger. It's the least affected actually. The tip of my index finger is beginning to be unbearably sensitive. The thumb also has the hammered look going on at the knuckle, but the worst pain is around the side of the pad.

Mess.

I've had a few nights now where the overall ache and prickling is keeping me awake and it will probably get worse.

It's not all doom and gloom. It was a good test to see how much I can push it while also taping religiously. And I got some fun art out of it. S'all good.

Also got through all of Star Trek:TOS. I'll post on that at some point. Hoo boy. It really never improved. -___-

But next post will probably be about JYJ. I still want to say a few words about the album. Plus, they're currently on a dome tour in Japan and releasing a new single. They are singing Begin during the concert encore. EMOSHINKI. The tears. THE TEARS I HAVE SHED. T___T

Hajimarusaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Oh, and I think I'm switching lanes to the Nvidia Shield Tablet instead of the Nexus 9. Android Lollipop rolled out for the Shield a few days ago and I think that just sold it for me. Waiting to see if there will be any Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals that become the determining factor.

K. I'm done.

In the thick of it...

May have been a bit ambitious. Ha!
I've been hunched over paints and pencils and stencils for a couple weeks. Now on the homestretch. I need to get these Project4Awesome art perks ready to ship by next Friday.

Cut up a ton of squares from old printmaking paper.
Mixed acrylics and painted them all for backgrounds.
Below are some progress pictures while I was stenciling the Nerdfighter salute logos.

Stenciled what I could. Everything else is hand-painted and drawn with Prismacolor pencils.

I'm eyeball-deep in this mess now. Lol. It's all the most focused, meticulous, detail-work for the rest.

Still aiming for 45 pieces, but my fingers are starting to get really angry with me. Taping religiously has kept me from a full-blown swelling episode, but there are a few spots that are on the way. Depending on how well my hand withstands the next couple days that number may need to change. We'll see.

Then it will be packaging and mailing. Woohoo!

FINGER STATUS:

It feels as good as it looks. My thumb is unfortunately untape-able, because it's too restrictive. But it has also had far fewer blow-ups than my other fingers, so it's still pretty manageable. The ring finger is a mess, but taping is keeping the swelling down and keeping my mobility. Lots of other sensitive/raw/threatening areas, but all tolerable thus far. I wonder how I'll be in a week!

Time to get back to work.

The Seamstress returns...

From this mess of an etching that I abandoned... to the new graphite version above. It'll probably go through another iteration at some point. The figure still has proportion problems that annoy me. And color. Maybe. I kind of dig the sepia though, even with it overpowering as it is. I should do something more with fabric. I like drawing fabric.

Re-visiting...

As I'm getting into a steadier clip of drawing, I've opened some old sketchbooks and perused ideas. Old pieces that I abandoned for lack of skill or time or confidence... one of which was 'The Seamstress'. It was a project I worked on for etching class and got the first handful of states on it and got less and less happy with how it was evolving. After many bouts of scraping and re-etching and scraping again it was downright ugly.



Ick. Makes me cringe. Lol.
I still like the whimsy/fantasy of the original idea, so I revisited the piece with graphite instead. It's much better now and is close to completion. Just filling out the borders and making final decisions about coloring. The hummingbird above is hovering to the left and the sewing lady is drawn with the same style/detail.


I'll probably be re-visiting lots of old pieces that I liked, but didn't have the skill to execute at the time. Really satisfying to go back and nail down what you couldn't before.

Been watching lots of curling. Heh. Norway should win gold by default for their pants.

In 8-ish hours the shit will be hitting the fan at the Emirates. Champions League game. Arsenal vs. Bayern Munich. Lawd have mercy. The expectation is that Bayern will totally slay. Probably true... but stranger things have happened. Should be an exciting game regardless. There'll be like a million Germans on the pitch. Practically the entire starting 11 for the German National Team, which I love dearly. That'll be fun/hilarious.

ALL ZE GERMANS!

Recently learned that the art teacher I've learned the most from is retiring after 30 years. Got me emotional. Fantastic teacher. Perfect balance of critical and encouraging and just a ridiculous wealth of knowledge.

...kind of a bittersweet note.

I'm craving chocolate cake right now. What in the world. I don't even like cake.
O.o

A breath...

Immortal Coil

While I try to get myself to stop fiddling with the code on my final site for Dreamweaver I'll post my final silkscreen project. We had to use a photo-stencil for at least one run, at least four runs total, and we were encouraged to have it 'mean' something. Plus, it needed to be a 'photo-collage', so I used my own photos of flowers and trees. Mine is (1) the flat background, (2) a ruby lith cut for the yellow to green blend you see below, (3) screen filler to block out for the crimson to red blend, (4) and the photo-stencil printed with a green to brown blend for the overall design. Happy happy happy with the finished product. I had ten prints of the one posted above and they printed totally consistent.

Pardon the distortion of the design. It was windy outside when I took pictures and the paper was moving. The first image is accurate. I have only two prints of this green one, which I might actually like better than the red roses. Made some other variations, too. This marble down below with just the last run and some others printed on top of previous left-over backgrounds.

There it is... another science-related ode. I can repeat the advanced etching class only one more time and there is the rarely available advanced silkscreen class next Spring. Considering both of them, but I'd like to know exactly what pieces I would try to accomplish before taking them. We'll see.

It's hard for me to think about anything future-ish right now. The anxiety is a daily thing. It has completely derailed me from my already slow track. Trying to keep my s*** together.

Ugh...

It was just one of those days.

It started with trying to finish my CSS homework last night. The padding went completely out of whack on a page and I still have no idea what is causing it. The work is technically easy. The problem is that we have to modify someone else's old, somewhat deprecated code. Trying to sort through 700+ lines of messy code for a simple assignment is no bueno. Because of the ridiculous amount of time it took to do almost nothing, I didn't get a chance to work on the next silkscreen project, which is a self-portrait (...that I'm severely lacking inspiration for, too). The bro called up in the midst of the coding hell, seeking help for his upcoming finals. Looks like I'll be sacrificing a Saturday to the badass sister goddess.

Didn't get enough sleep, ran late getting ready for school and power-walked in the finally winter-like cold rain. Then stood at the bus stop for 20 minutes in said cold rain, waiting for the very late bus. Power-walked/jogged through puddles to class, which I was sure I would be late to, earning a 'tardy'... a college class...with tardies. Made it to class before roll call! HUZZAH!

We had our critique for project #3, the CMY transparent layering dealio. I quickly became deaf to any praise when the Prof pointed out that there wasn't any violet in the piece. No violet. NO VIOLET.

NO FREAKING VIOLET.

I spent six hours cutting those three stencils and...

I CUT THE YELLOW STENCIL WRONG.

How it was supposed to look...minus the rage.

Yep. So after my heart had sufficiently shriveled into a raisin, I spent the rest of the class cleaning stuff and preparing stuff since I don't have a design for the self-portrait yet. TIME WASTE.

Having a really hard time getting over that mistake. Printed 12 editions of it and I was so happy with the result and I was done early. If I, or anyone else, had noticed that I didn't have violet I could've re-cut the yellow stencil and printed at least a few correct ones. But now it's too late and I failed the assignment. Ugh...

So frustrated.

I brought them home, so I guess I'll post my fail print soon.

*grumblegrumble*

Dissolving...

'Refresh'

 With my screen and equipment all sorted I dove right into project #2. Draw directly on the screen with water soluble crayons and pencils. Flood the screen with transparent base. Let it sit and dissolve for 5-ish minutes. Pull the impression. Clean the squeegee and pull until it transfers as much as possible. Done!

Left: The abstract was my first attempt. I happened to have some old Staedtler watercolor crayons that had been sitting in my room for 15 years probably. Ha! I wasn't sure if they would work so I went for something loose design-wise and thickly layered to test the limits. Turned out way better than I expected. Vivid and almost exactly as it looked on the screen. Some of the topmost black never transferred, but it was a good first test.

'Callas'

 Right: Spent a little more time on this one. I've wanted to do something with calla lilies for a long time. My mom likes them and I worked on it with her in mind. She likes purples, too, so that's the color scheme. I was a bit floored with how nicely it printed. Didn't lose much pigment. There was a little dry area in the top right that needed a little help. Otherwise... I like!

The process uses/wastes a huge amount of transparent base. One way to get a little extra mileage out of it is to swipe the leftover base (which is laced with dissolved crayon) over the screen and pull an impression. It makes some cool marbling effects. This last little square is a section of one I took. I got a few different ones. They'll be fun to draw over and use as backgrounds in various things.

Project #3 is back to paper stencils. We'll do a 3-color transparent piece. The transparent layers will form 7 total colors. One stencil each for the primaries: magenta, yellow, blue. Overlap will create orange, green, violet, and black. It's a little tricky because the colors are really similar in value. Yellow blends with the white of the paper. The orange is more like red-orange and blends with magenta. Blue and green are really close and the violet and mixed black are almost indiscernible. I spent a bunch of time in photoshop trying to figure out what to do. Ended up surrendering to a geometric thing, which isn't very original, but if I'm quick with printing it I can do something else. Spent about 6 hours today making design masters and cutting the yellow and magenta stencils out of mylar. My hand hates me right now... like... we're not on speaking terms. Lulz. It was already cranky from drawing with crayons, but whew. I know my neck is gonna feel completely crap, too. Fun. ^^

Ciao.

First screen shots...

Oooh! Pretty colorssssss!

 It hasn't rained more than a light sprinkle since the robin-fest. It's like late spring... continuously. Sunny. Warm. It's easily the warmest winter I've ever experienced. The ankle is improving, but still hurts. Now I feel like I have an alien foot. For the first time in 25 years I can't flex or point my foot without pain/limitation. Super weird.

After the first run of paper stencil prints we've just been preparing our own screens and equipment, which is quite an intensive process. I've just finished everything, as of yesterday. Next week I'll start project #2, which is a bunch of monotypes with water-soluble crayons/pencils. Should be interesting and colorful and the subject is completely open, so I might end up with six or more different prints along with some ghosts.

 Here is the result of project #1. The stencil was cut out of a sheet of mylar. I have twelve prints that look like the above. Below is the actual stencil with ink on it. It's essentially the inversion, which looks a lot better... *sigh* Too bad. I think I'll cut another one later on without using mylar. I could barely see/handle the stuff even with my fingers doing fine. Paper, ftw!

I'd take a picture of my whole screen rig, but the Prof is super anal about seeing, hearing, or getting a whiff of a cell phone. So that might not happen until I can get my ninja on.
Dreamweaver and CSS are just getting in gear. Both classes have really involved assignment structures and websites, so I'm still trying to settle in properly.

Peace.

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.

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.

For Science!

Drawing drawing drawing drawing...

Lots of drawing happening recently. My method of finger-taping is thus far keeping things fully functional and therefore inspiring a lot of work. Multiple plates taking shape, multiple drawings, sketches for paintings, and projects ongoing. I'm in over my head, but for the first time in a long time--it feels really good.

------------->
This is the idea I'm building for my 'Science' plate, minus the color I added in Photoshop. It might be too daunting to make it an etching, but I would like to try. I still want a DNA double-helix in there, so there will be some erasing and re-drawing before I move to metal. It would likely need a line etch first for the linear stuff, soft-ground drawing for everything else, and an aquatint with super careful stopping out to get what I want. Eek.

The Shamisen drypoint is going well. She has some simple background architecture behind her now and a few alterations. We started doing a pale yellow-ish transparent roll on the plates to give a slightly Chine-collé effect. The prints look great. Our Prof was feeling restless about the double-drop with aquatint color and decided to forfeit that part of the project. I'm alright with that. Ha. I'll scan one of my Shamisen editions next week.

Lots to do this weekend. Drawingdrawingdrawing and the first quarter of my HTML/CSS class is wrapping up, which means coding my site for the final. The recent rain has also uplifted my mood, but the forecast-ed sun for the week will also be helpful as I walk to and from class with plates and art stuff.

The King Ridge GranFondo was lovely. Volunteering at packet pick-up late Friday night and Saturday morning (4am) was hard. Half an hour of sleep between those shifts and the overall fast-paced social blitz were brutal on me. Haven't come down with a cold from it yet, but it really wouldn't surprise me. It was fun watching thousands of cyclists take off at the start though! As long as I'm able I'll keep volunteering for the Fondo. Great event.

Oh yeah... my 23" monitor is so glorious I can't even describe it. I have essentially doubled my workable screen area. It's incredible. *weeps with joy*

Peace.
じゃね！

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.

Now in color...

Worked on it for a couple of days and then it got too damn hot. Can't be painting during the day inside when it's 96 degrees outside and the whole house is closed up tight to keep out the heat. I know acrylics are pretty safe, but still, I require ventilation.
So yeah, kinda fun. I'd like to go in with graphite or prismacolors and mess with details and silliness. But now that the weather is cooling, I need to be working on the bigger paintings I have planned/need to finish. I'm slacking off far too much.
I'm thinking about FIDM... the $$$ is terrifying though. *sigh* Dunno what I'm doing. I think I'll take an online html class at the JC. Maybe advanced etching. Maybe silkscreen. Ugh. Too many things on my mind and no real direction. Same ol' same.

Harry Potter in a week. T______T
I think I'll go through an entire box of Kleenex before the movie even starts. But I know, once it's all said and done, I'll be walking out of the theater like this...

And then I'll go through another box of Kleenex.
^^

Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Yay, Summer!!!
My goal is to get five paintings done before Fall semester. That, and getting a driver's license and a job if possible. Plus, I'm doing some other art projects for friends. Yeeeee.


I don't know what this is or where it's going, but I've been painting it for the last couple days. Acrylic on Bristol. I actually drew it during Winter Break last year, but didn't get a chance to paint it. The process was lifted from one of Mzzz. Larsen's classes. During the gallery's sculpture show, we went down and sketched some of the maquettes. Then we cut the sketches into interesting pieces and moved them around on paper, tracing the contours. We finished them by 'irradiating' with simple black gradients. I rather liked my piece, but I think the Larsen kept them all.

But... I still had the sketch cut-outs!!! So I figured I would make my own little project. I think I'll be painting in some big areas of yellow-orange next. Maybe some bright green. Something bold. We'll see.

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.