Praeterita

I measured up the 100-page accordion book in preparation for making the box: I continued adding more images in blue and sanguine: Oh, and I started one of these ... ... this time on a panel with a 2 1/2 inch profile. Circles drawn in acrylic, sanded down and partially erased when dry, then covered with a thick layer of gel medium.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Katey Schultz, whom I met at the Interlochen Writers' Retreat in June, is currently teaching creative writing there to teenagers at the summer camp. She wrote on her blog 'The Writing Life' the other day about trying out the blind contour drawing/writing without rereading activity that Patty and I use in our Journal And Sketchbook class. It worked just as well for these young writers as it did for our older class. Here is one of the pages from her students' work that Katey posted on her blog: In this case, the student wrote on top of the blind contour drawing. Katey provides a good description of the entire process in her blog post:  The Writing Life: Where Lines Meet Words Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

I've wanted to do a proper ceramics class for a long time. Last night, I finally got to do it. For our recent wedding anniversary, Patty bought us places on a four-week course in handbuilding at the Lill Street Art Center, a northside institution in Ravenswood. Our instructor, Dustin, showed us how to make pinch pots, coils, and handles (for things like tea-cups, etc). He also took us on a tour of the center. Here he is showing us one of the giant kilns in the firing room: Here is Patty, inscribing her initials at the end of the evening on one of the pots she built: Everything in the beginner's class will be fired before next week, when we will start choosing our glazes. Fun-ness!   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

I glued together the second half of the signatures of the 100-page accordion book. Here they are with my most excellent vintage iron pressing down on them: I have ended up with a few signatures to spare from the 100-page accordion book, so I experimented with different colours: I tried a rose-red colour, but that didn't work at all, so I used sanguine, and that worked better with the brown, silver, and blue: The first colour was a mixture of sanguine and black, so it makes sense that using one of the original component colours would harmonise more easily.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

This is number 75 in the series -- three-quarters of the way to the goal of making 100 of these short illustrated talks. The latest is my tribute to the great Cy Twombly, who died last week.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Back to Chicago, and back to working on the 100-page accordion book for the Lucerne Project. Above are two of the pages with the first image (sanguine-black), and the second image (silver). This time, I added a third colour -- a mixture of white and blue: Close-up: So begins another couple of weeks of overprinting images in this third colour.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

“Monotype: Mediums and Methods for Painterly Printmaking,” Julia Ayres (Watson-Guptill, 2001).  Buy the book here . The book that I’m recommending this week is a practical guide to monotype/monoprint (purists say that they are two different kinds of prints, though I tend to say ‘monoprint’ to mean both). A monotype is a print that: starts with an application of ink on a surface, either rolled or painted; is further manipulated by adding to it or wiping parts away; results in a one-off print. This differs from intaglio or relief printmaking because you can make an image very quickly by just painting with pigment, laying paper over it, and applying some pressure. Julia Ayres provides a useful introduction to the history of the monotype, and follows that with chapters containing specific instructions on the different ways of making these prints: additive monotype, subtractive monotype, contact monotype; working with watercolours, oil based inks, and lithographic inks; using ...