Wet Canvas! Printmaking Holiday Exchange 2008

Well, I finally managed to get my collective together and have put together the slide show for the Wet Canvas! Printmaking holiday exchange.

Thanks to everyone who participated! It was a fantastic (as usual!) exchange.

Computer Stuff

Yesterday, I spent searching the internet for calls for printmaking exhibitions, and updated that thread on Wet Canvas.

Today, I worked for hours updating some of my Squidoo lenses on printmaking. The two I spent the most time on were:

Printmaking Resources - listing suppliers of general printmaking stuff, art papers, inks (for all different printmaking techniques, including litho, etching, relief, etc.), press manufacturers, printmaking equipment (e.g. brayers, levigators) and printing materials (e.g. Resingrave, solarplate)

and

Printmaking Workshops - an international listing of print studios, print arts groups, printmaking workshops, print ateliers and galleries specializing in print arts, as well as letterpress printmakers and some online printmaking references.

I also updated my Printmaking Artists lens, but didn't spend as much time on that.

These Squidoo lenses were originally created as a centralized resource for myself, but I've been finding them really useful to refer to for other people when they ask about suppliers or printmaking groups around the globe on the Wet Canvas printmaking forum.

Speaking of the forum, we just started up a new monthly challenge for 2009. Check that out here; it's just added, so you'll have to keep looking in to see how the progress is going over the month from all the members who participate.

I am back at editing the Printsy blog, too; check that out on Monday after I've posted the next interview. I'm too tired to do it tonight; there's actually a fair amount of work involved to post the interview, with getting the images set up properly (including the titles and correcting the hyperlinks). Sometimes I have to do a little editing on the interview itself, too, but usually not too much. It's fun, though, because I get to be the first one to read the interviews!

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to get my Etsy shop reopened after letting it lapse (by accident!) back in October - I didn't even notice it until December, which lets you know how successfully it was doing. That's what happens when you're not adding new work, Etsy stores kind of slide off the radar. This year, I'll start off slow, and try to consistently add stuff on a regular basis, rather than uploading everything at once (I understand that's a pretty common newbie mistake). I'll have to spend a little time on the Etsy forum to read up on successful business practices there.

I also need to work on my art inventory again. Being inactive and not creating anything for the last few months has meant that my bookkeeping has slid down hill, and I need to catch up on some recording. I am hoping to eventually develop a database for all my prints (it's only in spreadsheet format right now, and I need a little more depth to it than a spreadsheet can provide); that will take some more thinking time, though, before I get any further, so I'll have to devote at least another day later to that.

Oh, yeah, then I have to do work this week to make some money to pay for all these leisure time activities!

On a non-computer note, I am supposed to be doing a printmaking without a press demo tomorrow night for the South Delta Arists' Guild, but we are smack in the middle of another snow storm, and it's a real drive from here to there. I'll see what the roads are like tomorrow, but I probably will have to postpone to another meeting, unfortunately. What a bummer, because I left the studio behind specifically to get to it this week. Well, we'll see.

Connections

I always love meeting artists that I've met online in person. Last week was the Federation Christmas party, and I met a fellow Wet Canvas artist, Tracey Costescu, who is also a Federation member. She had recently contacted me about painting a watercolour from one of my images that I'd posted onto the Wet Canvas Reference Image Library. The RIL is a great resource for artists; members post photos that they don't mind other people using as reference material for whatever art purposes, for sale or not. The restrictions are that the owner of the photograph retains copyright and ownership to that photograph, and no-one can else claim that the photograph is theirs. What a great place to look for ideas! One of the drawbacks, however, is that a lot of people use the RIL and recognize the photos thereon, and that can sometimes prejudice a jury against the resultant work, but usually only with the really popular images.

Anyway, she's finished her painting and will soon post to her blog the process to arrive the finished product. I've seen it, but you'll just have to check back on Tracey's blog to get the full scoop! Nice job, Tracey, and thanks for sharing.

Christmas print exchange - Wet Canvas

Things I learned this week:

1. Remember not to move the press roller height when press not engaged (it kind of pooches your very carefully aligned pressure). For those of you that use a press all the time, this is obvious; for those of us who are just learning, not so much so, especially when the person operating the press is a bit of a fluffy bunny some times (yours truly).
2. Vinyl ("black linoleum") stretches when it goes through a press (and usually on your last run, when alignment most counts).
3. If anything is going to go wrong, it'll happen when you're working on something with either a deadline, or where the recipients are knowledgeable about your media, or both.

Mom & I did a collaborative print for our Printmakers Only Group Christmas cards, as well as for a Christmas print exchange organized through the Wet Canvas printmakers forum. Mom's image is a reduction of raccoon footprint in snow, mine is of rose hips and snow berries, as a border.

First Layer	Second Layer	Third Layer

And it looked great, right up until the last layer. This is what it should have looked like (this one got hand burnished, right at the end when we figured out what the heck was going on):

This is what most of them ended up looking like:

Although this is example (in the main focus of the image) is actually one of the better ones, not the worst, but you can see the examples along the bottom of the image are quite mis-aligned (the brown layer is out of alignment with the red layer). Here's the final batch:

I think that both Mom & I were maligning the Daniel Smith water soluble inks a little too carelessly; both of us had thought that the inks were causing the print to slip, hence the alignment on the layers of my Xocoatl print, and one of her prints, was definitely less than wonderful. As a result (and because we didn't have a lot of time to wait for ink to dry between layers), we used Speedball water soluble inks on this run. I was also thinking that it was my baby press that was causing the difficulties with a racking press bed for both the Xocoatl print and the print I did as a demo at the Delta "Gallery in the Garden" summer art fair (for which I used Faust inks). But as it's happening with the new large press (whose bed most definitely doesn't rack) and both were done using that black vinyl.

Now we're pretty sure that the stretching black vinyl through the press is the root of the problem. I understand about the pressure having to not be ridiculously intense, and it wasn't at the beginning, yet it seemed to get a bit stronger for the last run (even though neither of us touched the pressure adjustment between runs). Maybe the pressure was just a little strong at the end. I will try again another time with the vinyl and less pressure, and see what happens, although I have found that for enough pressure to transfer the ink uniformly and well, that results in enough pressure to stretch the vinyl, if my Xocatl and demo prints were anything to go by. I will have to try some different materials for blocks and see what happens when printed with my three ink types (Daniel Smith, Faust & Speedball) and on the two different presses.

But I do have to say, I loooooove the new press. What a joy to use. I can't wait to start creating some more stuff with it. But maybe not using that vinyl.

I tried a new (for me) registration option: the vinyl was squared into a little matboard frame, cut specifically to fit the block, and attached to the press bed. The card stock was aligned appropriately then traced onto a piece of paper taped underneath that matboard frame. So every time we went to print, we'd align the vinyl block in its little frame, then line up the card stock with the outline on the press bed.

And, if the vinyl hadn't stretched, I think the registration would have worked beautifully. Sigh.

So to those of you whom are receiving these prints, we apologize for the less than ideal alignment of the layers; it wasn't for lack of trying and apparently not from lack of consistency in methodology. At least you'll get the spirit of the print, if not the intention! One of these days, my exchange reduction prints are going to work beautifully, darn it!

Connections

Field & Flowers by Katka

This world of the internet is quite amazing. I had a wonderful "play date" with another printmaker that I met through Wet Canvas on Friday; we got together and chatted for at least 3 hours about all sorts of stuff, including art, inspirations, techniques & motivations. Kate's work has a very illustrative quality to it, with Eastern European influences that give it an almost folk-tale feel. She protests that she's really just getting started and doesn't have the same experience as I do; well, she doesn't have the luxury of time that I do (even though I don't use it as I should!). I think her work stands her in good stead, and I'm very excited to see what she continues to produce when time permits.

Through my musings on "slow art", I met another artist and creative person, with whom I had a delightful and fascinating conversation, again about our art and thoughts about creativity. Luckily for me, she fell in love with my "Crossroads" print, which resulted in my very first Etsy sale! The print was shipped off this morning all packaged up to keep it safe during its travels. I hope that it is enjoyed in its new home.

Triad by Heather Assaf

An artist that I met through my response to Genn's "Print vs Reproduction" is an Ottawa-based printmaker who also showed in the inaugural Ottawa School of Art impression:Miniature international print exhibition in 2006. Her work is very dynamic and colourful, predominantly using collagraph and intaglio, in an abstracted and loose manner. She's planning a trip out to Vancouver this spring, so I'm hoping we can connect to do a gallery crawl on Granville Island while she's in town.

In the Shadows (Ptarmigan) by Sherrie York

Finally, a comment on a recent post lead me to artist Sherrie York in Colorado, who is a brilliant illustrator, watercolourist and printmaker, also in relief. While her watercolours are lovely, her linocuts, to me, really sing. The fluid gestural quality of her lines, the extremely sophisticated and subtle use of colours and shapes, together with her incredible sense of composition create absolute masterpieces of natural history in print art form. She also has a blog, which I'll certainly be keeping a watch on; her field sketches are delightful gems capturing life in its essence, and she posts those, along with her photographs, paintings and prints, regularly. She's giving a field sketch workshop this July in Colorado, that, if I had unlimited funds to travel, I'd be signed up for in a shot. Thanks for contacting me, Sherrie!

Print vs Reproduction

Here we go - the perennial printmakers rant. The following is from Robert Genn's twice-weekly posting to The Painters Keys called "Prints or originals?" [edit: I had originally posted the entire message from the Painter's Keys, not really thinking about implications or interpretation, duh, and recently realized that that reduces traffic to Bob's site, which is definitely not good netiquette, and can be considered plagiarism (although I'd thought referencing the original source was sufficient at the time); I have now selected the important portion that I wished to quote. Please go to Bob's original post for the full story.]:

Esoterica: The ongoing problem with ubiquitous reproductions is what to do with genuine prints. Some folks do engravings, serigraphs, stone-lithos and other handmade, limited-edition works of art. I, for one, don't like to see traditional
print-art being marginalized, and mechanical reproduction has gone a long way in doing just that. This is one of the reasons dedicated printmakers tend to avoid clubs. Putting up a sign that says "Genuine prints--this way" won't cut it either,
unless you feel a donnybrook is needed for club publicity.

Robert Genn, The Painter's Keys

So really, the important message that I'd like to comment on was in the "Esoterica section". And my response (which may or may not be published in the Clickback response section to this post):

I'm sure you've received a tonne of responses from printmakers on this post. At least, I hope you do! Thanks for your "Esoterica", although, I wish it had somewhat more prominence in the post.

As a printmaker, and an active participant in the printmaking community (both online and locally), I strive very hard, along with my fellow printmakers, to educate about prints and printmaking vs reproduction prints. I have found that the worst response tends to come from other artists: "Why do you make such a big fuss over such a small nomenclature distinction?"

For traditional printmakers, the concept of the reproduction is not new - after all, lithographs, serigraphs (screen prints), and even block prints were regarded as "cheap" reproductive, quick and dirty methods of creating an image multiple times. Yet in all of these printmaking methods, there is a physical process involved where an artist, or craftsman (or team of craftsmen) working under the guidance of an artist, directly manipulates a "plate" of some kind (wood block, limestone block, silk screen) to create an image which is then transferred, one at a time, to a support. I just can't justify mass reproduction where machinery does pretty much all the work as the equivalent of an original print method. Printmakers take great pride in the craftsmanship and skill required to master their chosen print methodology.

On top of all of this, printmakers are sick and tired of having to qualify their term "print" in an effort to distinguish it from "reproduction". On the Wet Canvas! printmakers discussion forum, we have had many long rants about the "print vs reproduction" topic, as well as what to call an "original art print", which seems so cumbersome. After lots of interesting opinions, no one has yet come up with a particularly good alternative. Branding is everything, as it were, and printmakers need a really good ad agency to help us rise to the occasion!

I do understand the economic benefits to reproduction of original art, and I'm not trying to imply that there isn't a place in the art market for reproductions; after all, not everyone can afford an original Robert Genn or Emily Carr. But perhaps opportunities to provide art-lovers with small gems of original art should be encouraged (with ACEO/ATC as a great example), rather than resorting to the quick fix of the reproduction. And original print art can be one of the solutions to the economic quandary: by their nature, and by the public opinion that anything in an "edition" must be worth less than something that's one of a kind (even though each print requires equal effort to create in order to be considered acceptable to be included in an edition), original prints are usually very reasonably priced, and it's often easy to find "shrink wrapped" versions for an even more economical choice.

So please, artists, consider the use of the term "print" vs "reproduction" carefully. For every "print" out there that isn't created using a printmaking (as opposed to reproductive) process, you are denigrating the art of the original print.

So there's my rant for the day. Read it and weep (if you're a printmaker); the battle seems to be uphill and pointless.

Opening Night, Mark II

Thursday, November 8 marked the opening for the Place des Arts Positively Petite exhibition, which coincided with the solo exhibition opening, Solitude, paintings by my friend, Alice Rabinowitz. As my relief printmaking class at Port Moody Arts Centre got canceled (only one person signed up, sigh), I was able to make the opening.

Alice's show is a collection of paintings and haiku, from florals to life models to en plein air, including watercolours, monotypes and mixed media work. The work was beautifully hung in a spacious room at Place des Arts, and there were many people in attendance admiring Alice's work, including a number of friends that drove all the way out from the west side of Vancouver, White Rock and North Vancouver on a weekday evening!

Alice Rabinowitz with her monotype "Sun Shower" at "Solitude"

At the Positively Petite opening, I met a fellow Wet Canvas! addict, Madelaine Fedorowich. She hangs out usually in the acrylics, oils and miniature forums, so I don't cross paths online with her too often. Anyway, it was very exciting to put a face to a web presence, and to her art - it was nice to meet her there. This was Madelaine's first exhibition, with a delightful selection of tiny, cheerful little birds (and other subjects), so congratulations Madelaine!

Work of Madelaine Fedorowich at "Positively Petite"

Madelaine and myself in front of my works at "Positively Petite"

Also in attendance was another fellow Federation (and Wet Canvas!) artist, James Koll, who had absolutely exquisite watercolours, two of which (both of sunflowers) sold and left the building that night. Great work James!

I actually ran into quite a few people that I knew and didn't expect to see, so it was really a fun evening. If you are in Coquitlam, Alice's Solitude exhibition is on until December 8, and the Positively Petite exhibition until December 21.

Miniature Challenge

I just discovered Wet Canvas!, an internet artist community with amazing stuff. One of the groups is the Miniature Art section, and in there they have a monthly challenge. I decided what the heck! They post a few different photos, and you have to produce a piece that is no larger than 12 square inches in any media, based on at least one of the photos. So this was my contribution:

New Castle Lighthouse photo by karenjh
Dimensions: 10cmx6cm (roughly 4"x2 3/8")
Medium: Relief block print carved from vinyl/synthetic block, Speedball water-based ink, printed on Strathmore Bristol paper. Haven't finished the edition yet, so I don't yet know the size.

I'm rather pleased with the texture of the clouds & sky, and I was delighted at the texture of the lighthouse itself. While the original is actually of stone, this has the feel of a wooden structure, which is kind of neat.

Monthly challenges are a great way to get the old gears moving. I get stuck in a rut; not so much that I have no ideas (I usually have plenty) but I don't necessarily know where to start or which one to work on. I find that I prefer to figure out a way to do something first before I tackle it, then progress through it. I suspect that comes from my scientific background!