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!!!