Praeterita

  Beginning shortly before Christmas, I have been regularly uploading short videos showing me (or at least my hands) at work in my studio. Many of them are short hyperlapse videos, condensing hours of work into fifteen or thirty seconds, to fit the Instagram format and recommended length. Ai imagine that by the end of this year I will have quite an extensive archive of my painting and printmaking sessions.  

I've returned to my studio a couple of times in the last few weeks (masked and wearing latex gloves whenever I am in the corridor of the studio building, or moving between building and car.) I took advantage of the new equipment I bought to setup my online classes to record a timelapse of me painting. The piece is a 5 feet x 4 feet canvas, brushing a texture layer of Prussian Blue over a ground of Naples Yellow. The video is a 60 second condensing of several hours of work. What interests me when I watch it is that I notice things that I'm only semi-conscious of during the painting process, such as how I vary the direction of the brush all the time, and the pressure, and the kinds of marks (linear vs. brushing), to create a lively surface.

A while ago, I undertook a task that I had been meaning to do for ages: organizing my etching studio to be more efficient. Previously, I haven't had enough surfaces in one area to be able to perform all the necessary tasks (plate preparation, etching, cleaning, inking, printing) without having trays spread out all round my studio. The first thing I did was to buy a new set of shelves. From top to bottom, this now has: My DIY hot box, and my DIY aquatint spray booth. The stripping bath (soda ash & hot water, and the airbrush & compressor. The brightener bath (vinegar & salt), the ferric tank, and a water tray. Tray storage area, and the filter bucket for the spray booth. Below the printing press, I finally have some blotter boards for flattening and drying prints: The narrow work table has a fresh coat of paint, a new shelf above it, and is now free to hold the paper soaking tray: The large work table has a thick sheet of glass, for adding and removing...