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.

Frustrations...

My hand was doing so much better. I was feeling great. All enthusiastic about getting back to work.
Past tense.
I worked on The Seamstress and a couple days later my fingers started swelling again. Put me right back down in a dark, slimy, emotional hole.
Awesome.
But now I'm side-eying the scribe I use. Wondering if that's the culprit 'cause I used other writing implements while my hand was healing and had no trouble.

Anywho...
Doodled these a few months ago, before my hand started falling apart.
I was watching 'The Mystery of Picasso' and felt like drawing a bit.
The first one was a micron pen over a thin layer of pink acrylic paint in a blackbook. Scanned it, doubled it in Photoshop, rotated, color changed, etc, etc...
Kinda fun.


The second one is decidedly more Picasso. Used a similar process to what he did in the film. Always a joy to watch an artist work in real time. Very cool documentary.



Trying to not get crazy depressed about my hand again.
Trying.
Finding it hard to be successful.
Started re-reading The Hunger Games hoping that the epic gore and injuries will make me feel better about my own condition. Kinda working.
Next post should be scans of my abstract proofs. Might dip The Seamstress, too.
Putting the scribe on quarantine. We'll see what happens.

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.