Skip to main content

Day 16: How did that happen?

So as I was working on this picture on which I painted all the texture and the dot patterns:

... I felt emboldened, for some reason, to start drawing all over it, using a fine point brush and airbrush paints:

I have an idea about where this all came from, though I don't know why it came forth today and not earlier. I've done a lot of automatic drawing in the last few years, some of it random, some of it clearly related to the personal narrative work. Mostly I felt able to combine figurative and non-figurative elements in prints, and artist's books, rather than in paintings.

Over Christmas, I read part of Xenophon's 'Anabasis', regarded as one of the greatest texts of the ancient Greek world. Without going into too much detail about the story, the main thing that stayed with me was the idea of the word 'Anabasis' which can be translated as 'journey to the interior'. Most of what I am trying to do in the studio ultimately is just that: a voyage to the interior of the self; an Anabasis.

And when you start on that voyage, you run into all sorts of unexpected things:
Closey-uppy picture of above painting
I'm thinking of adopting 'Anabasis' as the name for my next solo show.

 Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Restoring my Printing Press

I've just finished restoring and assembling my large etching press -- a six week process involving lots of rust removal, scrubbing with steel wool, and repainting. Here is a photo of the same kind of press from the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative: And here is a short YouTube video of me testing the press, making sure the motor still works after nearly seven years of lying in storage:
Click here to read more

Brancusi in Plastic

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau is showing these columns made from recycled plastic cartons and lids in the window of the Columbia College bookstore on Michigan Avenue. They are a playful homage to Brancusi's "Endless Columns", with a serious environmental message for our times: Image copyright Inhabitat.com and Mary Ellen Croteau Mary Ellen also runs a wonderful experimental art gallery in a window space in west Chicago, called Art on Armitage . I will be exhibiting a mixed media piece there during August 2012.
Click here to read more

How to etch a linoleum block

Linoleum as a material for printmaking has been used for nearly a hundred years now. Normally, you cut an image out using special gouges similar to woodcut tools, cutting away the lino around the image you want to print. This is called relief printmaking, because if you look at the block from the side, the material that remains stands up in relief from the backing material. You then roll ink with a brayer over the surface of the block, place paper over it, and either print by hand or run it through a press. You can do complex things this way (for example, reduction linocuts), but the beauty of the process is that it is quick, simple, and direct. Incised lino block, from me.redith.com Etched lino block, from Steve Edwards A few years ago, I saw some prints that were classified as coming from etched linoleum blocks, and I loved the textures I saw in them. In the last few months, I've been trying to use this technique in my own studio, learning about it as one does these d
Click here to read more