Praeterita

Last week, I went to the Interlochen College of Creative Arts to teach a 3-day intensive course in monoprint printmaking to a group of 6 adults. A monoprint is a type of print you make by painting or rolling ink onto a surface (a metal plate or plexiglass, for instance), manipulating the ink in different ways, then pressing paper onto the plate and applying pressure, either by hand-rubbing or a printing press. You usually only get one print at a time this way, hence the name "monoprint." (Strictly speaking, there is a difference between a monotype and a monoprint, but I'm not terribly purist about that.) It was a great class, very tiring for all concerned, but we got some great prints out of it. On the first day, we spent some time outside making contact monoprints while doing some blind contour drawing: Here are a few prints from that session: The next photo shows a plexiglass plate on the bed of my portable printing press, the image painted freely with ...

I worked some more on our old friend, Mr. 8" x 8" Panel: I found out that if you're slathering lots of acrylic gels/glazing media around, spritzing the wet layer quickly with some isopropyl alcohol will prevent air bubbles from forming on the surface. Then I did something new. In preparation for the Artist's Book classes that I will teach during the summer, I tried out a flag book: The principle is that you glue pieces of imagery (your flags) onto an accordion fold spine, with the rows facing in opposite directions: When you open the book, it makes a satisfying 'click' as the flags open apart and pull in opposite ways: For the main image, I cut up an old print of mine into six segments. Then I stuck bits of another print on the back so that it could be viewed from both sides: Click on any of those photos to embiggen them and bask in the detail. It was great fun, and it opens up lots of exciting possibilities for creating and displaying images (and ...

This summer, you can join me for two printmaking classes at the Interlochen College of Creative Arts in northern Michigan, near the beautiful Leelenau peninsula. I've already blogged about the reduction linocut class. To whet your appetite further, here is a slideshow of images from the relief printmaking class I taught there in 2010. One of the great things about a printmaking studio is this: not only are the processes so absorbing, but there is always an atmosphere of communal art-making and fun that develops among the participants. There's still nearly two months to sign up, but class sizes are limited, so don't leave it too late.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Following on from previous posts about the techniques I propose to teach at the Introduction to Printmaking class at Interlochen in June, here's an especially delicious process. Called c hine-collé, it involves placing a piece of thin coloured paper, coated on one side with wheat paste, on the inked up linoleum block. The two are then printed onto a thicker piece of paper, with the result seen in the print above, where the student used a strip of ochre-coloured Japanese paper to represent the sky. From the same class, another student did the following print: Here, the yellow circle and the two red circles are the  c hine-collé. As you can see, it's a beautiful and simple way of combining colour and a different texture with a black and white linocut. And of course, you could ink the linocut with coloured inks, too.   If you want to learn how to do this in the beautiful setting of the Interlochen Arts Academy in northern Michigan, sign up for the class now . See also: O...

'Tree' by Bob, 2009 One of the great things we do in the Introduction to Printmaking class , which I am teaching at the Interlochen College of Creative Arts this summer, is something called rainbow roll. An example is shown in the image above. First, the student, Bob, cut the image of the tree out of one block of linoleum. Next, he took a block of the same size that hadn't been cut. This gave him a flat, smooth surface to roll the ink onto. I put a dab of blue ink and a dab of ochre ink at the edge of a plexiglass plate, placing the ink about three inches apart. Using a brayer as wide as the plexiglass plate, I showed Bob how to roll the brayer back and forth so that the surface of the brayer picked up a band of blue ink, a band of ochre ink, and then a gradually blended mixture of the two colours in the centre. He then rolled this over the blank block of linoleum until it was covered in colour that started blue on edge, then graded through green and on to ochre on the ...

From June 28th 2010, I'm scheduled to teach a beginning printmaking class at the Interlochen Arts Academy's summer program for adults. Above is a slideshow of a similar class I taught in rural Illinois in 2009. It shows people working on their linoleum blocks, followed by some of the prints they produced. Note that no-one in the class had ever done this before, and that only a couple had had any prior art experience at all. Do you want to learn how to do this in the stunning surroundings of northern Michigan? Then go to the Interlochen page on this blog, follow the links, and sign up! Summer classes at Interlochen On another collagraph method Contact monoprints   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Here is another method of making a collagraph with the inexpensive aluminum flashing tiles I talked about in a previous post. It's very simple and effective. The little movie included in this post illustrates it step by step, but here's a summary: Draw directly on the plate (aluminum flashing tile) with Elmer's glue, or a brush dipped in the glue. Shake carborundum grit over the wet glue. Tip the plate up to shake off excess grit. When the plate is dry, seal it with a layer of acrylic gloss medium (I realised after I made the movie that I missed out this step!). You can then ink and print the plate in the regular way: Use a brush or piece of card to drag ink across the plate. The carborundum grit holds the ink very well. Wipe away the excess ink using a piece of tarlatan. Place damp printmaking paper over the plate, then run it through the press. For the slideshow, I inked the plate "a la poupee", which means to use different colours of ink on the same ...

Here is another artist's book that I made at the end of last year. It's called 'Coalyard'. 8" x 15", accordion book, bound in brown bookcloth. Method: take eight images of industrial buildings and mineworks. Print on tan Hahnemuhle printmaking paper using paper-litho transfer. Write a short remembered instance relating to my miner-grandfather and the local mines where I grew up. Print narrative in continuous line across middle of the images:   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader