Digital Work - Bullrider

While I've not been in the printmaking studio (other than to plant up our seedlings for the summer...), I've done a little bit more preparation for some printmaking in the future.

We used to attend the Williams Lake Stampede, but haven't been for a few years. I took lots of photos at the last two with the intention of turning them into something artistic at some point. I had done a few mixed media images from some of the photos: semi-blind contour sketches followed by watercolour monotype and coloured pencil crayons (if I manage to dig up one of those pieces, I'll take a photo and post at some point), but nothing much since. I hadn't decided how else to use the images, then the other day I thought maybe I'd try playing around with GIMP and my Wacom graphics tablet like I did with Murri, and see what came out of it.

So I started with a photo that I'd scanned a while ago, and cropped a little:

I tweaked the image so that it was then just greyscale:

Using a new layer and the Ink tool in GIMP, this is the first sketch:

While I was pretty happy with it, Dave & my cousin, Len, commented that they couldn't figure out where the bull ended and the rider started. I've highlighted the problem area here:

It seemed to them that the chaps of the rider were actually the back of the bull, and thus the leg disappeared and didn't "read" properly: it seemed like the rider was positioned side-saddle. We chatted about what I could do to improve the image, and we decided that as long as there was some kind of distinction between the back of the bull and the chaps of the rider, that it should probably work. Here is the second attempt:

While the leg still disappears to a certain extent, I'm thinking this will probably be it. I do like the composition better, and with a black & white simplification, you definitely can lose detail, but that's something that appeals to me, personally. Any comments or suggestions?

There will likely be more of these as I can take the time to do them; there's already another under way.

More Murri

He's just such a fun subject to work with.

So, continuing with the theme of turning digital sketches into block prints:

Lounging
MDF block print, Dremel carved
Daniel Smith water soluble inks on grey Rising Stonehenge paper
© Amie Roman

Sitting
MDF block print, Dremel carved
Daniel Smith water soluble inks on grey Rising Stonehenge paper
© Amie Roman

Birthdays

I have actually been doing a little art, here and there (a little more this week, but we'll get to that in another post); I've just not had a lot of enthusiasm about posting. I spend most of my day on a computer for work, and I have two weekly posts over at Printsy, so by the time my "spare" computer time rolls around, generally I would rather play with GIMP, or catch up with the Reader (yeah, I know, I've not posted anything about that, either, but there have been some good ones, so hopefully I'll be able to pull together something for you on that next week). So, this blog suffers. Bad, Amie, bad.

Well, I had three birthdays (two within days of each other in April, one at the beginning of May) to come up with cards for; fortunately, two of the recipients aren't fussy and were happy with the same card. I took two of the images that I'd played with in GIMP, and turned one

Goofy Murri - digital drawing
© Amie Roman

into a very "quick & dirty" relief print:

Goofy - MDF block print, Dremel carved
Daniel Smith water soluble inks on card stock
© Amie Roman

and the other:

Sitting - digital drawing
© Amie Roman

into a watercolour:

Sun Spot - watercolour
© Amie Roman

All cards were enthusiastically received, and I'm safe for another year (oh, well, until Christmas...)

More Sketching

I'm working on actual paid work this week, so not much brain space or enthusiasm for figuring out a new print project. So I've been taking some time in the evenings to do a little sketching, instead. Murri is a great subject, and a lot easier when he's napping; unfortunately, he wasn't napping much, and a bit squirmy, which of course makes sketching more of a challenge. These sketches were from the last couple of evenings.

This afternoon, I was waiting for supper to come to a boil, and thought "what the heck!", so this is the result:

Sketching

There are so many incredible, inspiring artists who produce work every day. Not me. I'm generally lazy and uninspiring. But I thought I'd share the few sketches I did today of my captive subject matter by the fireplace.





After his long, tiring session as model, Murri curled up in his blanket nest on the couch to recouperate.

What's on Amie's Reader

I keep finding more wonderful artists and interesting blogs to follow. I'm going to have to watch out, otherwise all I'll have time for is reading my Reader.

Art Stuff

Pikaland introduced me to the creative & incredible wire sculptures of cwroelle on Flickr.

Sarah Wimperis' Muddy Foot Prints shows the construction of her clever and whimsical wool felt sculptures and the challenging art of the person print.

Thanks to michaelnobbs on Twitter, I've been introduced to many, many illustrators, too many to keep track of entirely. However, Elizabeth Perry over at woolgathering has just recently passed her 1,500 illustrations a day mark. I love the layouts of her illustrations in her notebook, her choice of what to illustrate and with what manner of tools. I'm a huge fan of this one, especially.

A community blog featuring art from water, Watermarks' Tina Mammoser struggles with the balance of spontaneity and planning in composition and execution.

I love printmaker/photographer Marja-Leena Rathje's blog, and totally forgot to include her definition of February post in a timely fashion (duh! and happy belated birthday Marja-Leena); I love February's Finnish name "pearl month". Marja-Leena usually has beautiful images of the textures and patterns of nature and the world around us. Join Marja-Leena for a second look...

I like both versions, but I think I prefer option #1 to option #2. Nice exchange print, Amy.

A couple of beautiful, fluid intaglios by Sarah Waite.

Gorgeously carved, richly inked, and beautifully balanced negative and positive linocut by Robyn Sinclair over at Have Dogs, Will Travel.

Edible printmaking via Printeresting. Really.

Science Stuff

Have a look at some rare South African starfish and learn that taxonomists often get it wrong over at The Echinoblog. (I love how he liberally sprinkles enthusiastic exclamation points everywhere!! He teaches natural history as public education outreach... I think it comes with the territory).

The Other 95% has a great video of the "pom pom" crab, so called because of the anemones glued to his pincers (ok, chelipeds to be specific). Aww! "I'm big & scary! I'm big & scary! Watch out for me!!"

And a fish with a see-through head (I'm not kidding - nature is inevitably stranger than fiction), magnetic crocodiles, and beetles with, er, shall we say, battle-ready organs of reproduction. Check 'em out on Zoologix (such a great fix of the nifty and not-so-normal critters in the world).

Thanks to Phytofactor, I've had a quick flip through the "top 100 botanical blogs" (although how they could possibly exclude Watching the World Wake Up and How Plants Work from the list is totally beyond me; obviously they've not been introduced to them), I'm now reading The Fruit Blog. Plus there are some lovely classical botanical illustrations there, how can I resist?

Speaking of WTWWU, find out about buds on deciduous trees and some cool lava-related geology. And, definitely, soap operas make a much better analogy of Darwinian evolution than the Aeneid (why that and not the Odyssey, the original one? Just wondering...).

What's on Amie's Reader

When I first started blogging, and learning about other people's blogs, I had no great way to keep track of what I wanted to read. I started my Squidoo lens on printmaking artists, with the intention of showcasing printmaking bloggers. Well, that sort of went off course a bit, and now there are all sorts of cool printmakers on there. I have kind of run low on steam for keeping that one up to date, because I keep discovering more and more amazing printmaking artists with websites. I will still keep working on it, but I have other projects that seem to be taking precedence lately.

As I was working on the lens, I was trying to add Etsy shops to those artists who are printmakers with Etsy stores. Then Prinsy was forged first as a Flickr group, then as a full-fledged Etsy Team. Our blog got started, and I seemed to be luckily in on the ground floor with that one. I've been blogging two (mostly) regular posts: Printsy member interviews, should be self-explanitory, and "Who's Printsy This Week", a selection of ten items listed by our Printsy members who have used the tag "Printsy" on the item listed. So I've been busy trying to bring people to the Printsy fold, and then trying to get them to give us a little information about themselves on the blog interviews, which have so far showcased some absolutely incredible art by a range of skilled, creative, and talented printmakers. Keep an eye on the Printsy blog for more great stuff.

So back to trying to keep track of those printmaking artists who blog. I like reading people's thoughts on their process and development of their images, on their marketing efforts, on their inspirations, and often on their daily lives. Cue stage right: Google Reader. If you are keen on keeping track of news feeds and blogs, Google Reader lets you do so all in one spot. For those of us with Blogger accounts, it's a no-brainer. For anyone who doesn't yet have a Google account, it's a pretty easy step to set one up. Yes, Google is taking over the world, and I am doing my fair share to see that it happens. Sigh. Well, if they stop having so many great applications to use (I'm also a Google Docs addict), maybe I wouldn't be so enabling .

Another Printsy member recently posted to her blog about her Google Reads, and I thought what a great idea! So I'll try to do a fairly regular feature about what's on my reader, to share some of the wonderful stuff that I already get to read about, but that you might be interested in, too. It's almost entirely art and natural-history dominated, which probably won't surprise anyone here, but I am open to other topics.

So, here's the first installment of What's on Amie's Reader. This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination. I might do some kind of theme, or just pick a few that pop out as particularly interesting.

Printmaking

My longest-read printmaking blog would have to be Annie Bissett's Woodblock Dreams. Follow Annie's development of her intricately detailed woodcuts and symbologically deep imagery in her moku hanga work. Her recently completed "Honey, I'm Worried About the Kids" links past with present, tradition with innovation, and the connecting thread of doing what's right for our children with the Pilgrim's migration to the New World.

I think my two favourite printmaking bloggers would have to be Sherrie York on Brush and Baren and Jen Z on Jen and the Greyhounds. Both artists share enthusiasm for their subject matter and frustrations with interruptions to creativity, which really strike a spark of recognition in this reader's heart, and their sense of humour at the world sure helps keep the posts entertaining.

Sherrie's luciously executed linocuts are exquisite to behold, and I'm delighted, always, to follow their progress. She's just started up a new work in progress based on her recent "underfoot" theme.

Jen's blog focuses a lot on her greyhound mates, and her lovely photography of these animals bounding about really captures their spirit. Jen's been taking advantage of her beautiful surroundings lately, taking the dogs off cross-country skiing through upstate New York.

Natural History

One of my favourite aspects of natural history is the "gee whiz" factor: there is just so much out there that escapes our attention almost 100% of the time, that I really appreciate having my attention focused on things that are, truly, remarkable. From behaviour to biochemistry, life and death of the organisms that surround us is source of incredible wonder, and these bloggers share that with us.

Probably the nature-related blog I've longest held on my Reader is A Snail's Eye View, thanks to Sherrie's Brush and Baren link list. Right now, Snail is in the middle of the record-breaking searing Australian weather that is making the bushfires raging across south eastern Australia's state of Victoria so incredibly deadly. I've enjoyed Snail's intimate portrayal of the critters that find their way to Snail's back yard, and the knowledge imparted about these organisms is interesting in a very approachable manner.

Snail then introduced me to The Other 95%. While some of his posts are quite technical, there's just some great stuff that blogger Kevin Zelnio shares with his readers. Check out his recent post on cepahlopod camoflauge behaviour. Kevin also recently hosted the latest Circus of the Spineless, a showcase of bloggers who have posts about invertebrates.

Finally, Watching the World Wake Up is an entertaining combination of mountain biking, hiking and botany through the deserts of the western US. Learn what the three types of photosynthesis are, how photosynthesis is like mountain bikes, and why Mormons are like singlespeeders.

Enjoy the reads, and feel free to share anything of interest that you bump across. You never know, maybe it'll end up on my Reader!

Oceans of Art - Days 3 & 4

The weather was absolutely spectacular on the morning of our third day in Bamfield. I spent the first part of the morning working on more sketches in the Whale Lab:

Then our group headed out on one of the Marine Station's research vessels to do a little sight-seeing, and to do a bottom drag. We used a small basket that was pulled along the bottom for a short distance, then pulled up and washed the contents into a viewing tray. The Station uses the same, disturbed location for their drags, and it seems to be constantly re-colonizing, because there is amazing variety of critters each time they come out.

The weather turned decidedly less congenial: the wind picked up, the sun went into hiding, and we even got a few flakes of snow. The group braved the elements to have a wee wander along Pachena Bay, sketching and photographing, and a bonfire and schmooze with some local Bamfield artists.


There was time for a little more sketching before dinner:

Then off to an evening of entertainment! Many of the artists collected in the fireplace lounge and Mark Hobson brought out his guitar, and we all had a wonderful time singing and laughing, and sampling some beautiful blackberry wine. We also had a final lab where we all trouped over to the Rix Centre to look at plankton under the microscope. We all found that absolutely fascinating, and many stayed longer than we were meant to.

Our final night was just delightful, and we were all reluctant to depart on our final day. We woke up to a dusting of snow, and we trudged through the slush to breakfast, then back again to load up our gear for transfer to the docks. Some took the time waiting for the return of the MV Frances Barkley with art, some with networking, and some of us with just being lazy. We loaded up onto the ship when she arrived, and had a lovely, friendship-filled trip back to Port Alberni.

We all await with great anticipation the Oceans of Art exhibition to be held at the Nanaimo Art Gallery, 150 Commercial Street, from June 11 - 29, 2009, opening reception on Thursday, June 11 (time to be announced, but likely in the evening). Work will be for sale during that exhibition, and proceeds will go towards the Public Education Program at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.

Oceans of Art - Day 2

After a hearty breakfast, we all piled into, in 12-body groups, two of the station's skiffs to make our way over to West Bamfield. Bamfield is split by Bamfield Inlet: some of the community is on the east bank, some on the west bank. On the other side of the peninsula on which West Bamfield sits lies the open Pacific Ocean. We trudged across the peninsula to arrive at Brady's Beach, a spectacular and well-known sandy beach with rocky sea stacks, perfect for landscape artists! And, at the right time of day, it is perfect for tide pool puddlers. Unfortunately, we arrived late on the incoming tide, so no fantastic tide pools to puddle in. But there were plenty of neat things to sketch and photograph that had washed up on the beach, not to mention the stacks themselves.

We spent the morning on the beach, walking, sketching, snapping shots, and just watching the surf roll in. The hike back was interesting: it's quite hilly crossing the peninsula, and the first hill from the beach is huge! Some of us took the scenic route, and walked the beautiful boardwalk along the shoreline of West Bamfield. Even met some of the residents:

In the afternoon, we split up into our respective groups, and went on different excursions. Our group took a boat up Grappler Inlet. The sun decided to bless us with its presence and made the lighting spectacular for our trip. The water was crystal clear, and we could see way down to the bottom, strewn with pink stars and huge clam shells. At the head of the Inlet was a freshwater lens that had frozen, so we did a little ice breaking (kind of entertaining). And we got to witness nature at work: a couple of raccoons picking up nibblies from the exposed foreshore, rafts of ducks, a cormorant drying off on a piling after a dive, and the ultimate wildlife experience of a bald eagle catching a juvenile gull, then taking it to a rock to pluck and devour while we watched.

A little time was left before dinner for a visit to the Whale Lab, and I took the opportunity to work on some sketches.



After dinner, we were treated to "Life at the Edge of the Sea", a documentary filmed on location in Bamfield and off the coast by the BBC. It's a great film, I've seen it before, but I was so tired from the day's events that I just had to crash. Off to bed to rest up for another jam-packed day.

Koi - experimenting with inks

I received some sample ink colours (yellow ochre, Cadmium primrose yellow, Cadmium red medium light, and I think one more, but I can't recall what it is now!) from Faust in their AquaLine series of water soluble inks (see here and here for my ink trials where I included Faust inks). I was in conversation with Peter Faust about wanting some other colours, and he again very generously sent me some samples to play with. I believe I received the inks in spring. I didn't get around to trying this until the summer. I was kind intending on blogging about this as soon as it was finished, but when I'd done my "last" layer, I didn't think it was finished, so I put it away until this week. When I pulled it out and had a look at it again, I decided that it was as finished as it was going to get, that I was happy enough with it to edition, and that I might try again but using the MDF in future. Again, this was printed with the black linoleum, which, I now understand, stretched under the pressure of the press (this was the first edition I did on the big press, I believe).

The purpose of this print was twofold: to experiment with my lovely new sample inks, and to try to create a print using very translucent colours. I really wanted the colours of all the layers to come through. Well, I succeeded, and hoped that the final colour would be more opaque, but it wasn't. As a result, the sloppy, er, selective inking that I'd done with the rather opaque cad red showed through more than I wanted.

OK, so here's the WIP:

The first layer is far too pale to see well in the photo, but it was enough to let some of the paper show through. It was a very subtle layer of mostly transparent medium with a touch of pigment, I believe the cad primrose.

The second layer is selectively inked to just add some darker primrose to the body:

The third layer is primrose with a touch of cad red, again just selectively inked on the head:

The fourth layer is now starting to show the volume of the image, the shading of the under-parts, and defining the fins. This is a very translucent layer with a hint each of ultramarine and raw umber:


A slightly darker fifth layer, continuing with the previous idea, with a little more ultramarine in the mix:

The sixth layer is primarily transparent medium, with some cad red:

I thought the red would be covered by the final layer, you can still see some of the rough brayering in the background. I sort of fixed it by brayering a bit more red all around the background, which made it less blue than I'd hoped, but here's the final layer (I think mostly ultramarine and raw umber but also some transparent medium:

As I said, the print worked well enough for an edition, albeit small (only five). I really like the way the translucent layers work. I'd like to try again, but a little more careful application of the brayer next time, or perhaps two blocks (which likely is what I should have done in the first place!). I shall be shipping one of these to Faust to thank them for their samples.

Being Shod - lessons in printmaking

The original photo for this print was taken by my grandfather. Mom has a number of wonderful old photos taken by her dad, as well as her mum's dad, and I'm hoping to translate some of them into prints. This photo was of a horse being shod in a logging camp. The background was pretty over-exposed, so I wasn't really able to get much good detail. So I didn't know what to do when I first started off; you'll see the background in the sketch is pretty vague.


Lesson #1 - decide on a background before you start carving. Because I hadn't decided on a background, I figured the first colour would make up the background by itself:


As a result, I changed my mind about the values in the drawing as I was working on the second layer. Then I decided on the background: I'd make it into the interior of a barn.

Lesson #2 - don't change your mind about values in the middle of carving.

As a result of changing the mind about the values, you'll see that the lightest value falling in front of the back leg of the horse is really high contrast, and not a great value choice. Also, by changing my mind about the background in mid-carving mode, I've got a "halo" around the subject matter, which really is a beginner relief printer's mistake. The background should define the foreground, and vice versa, without having to outline everything.

Lesson #3: Sometimes you can fake it to fix mistakes. I took a little bit of the first colour and dabbed with my fingertip over the light part that bothered me. Then printed the third and final layer on top:


The end result is much improved; you can't tell that I made the fix, and it makes the image read so much better. Once again, I am happy with this print; I seem to be on a roll this week! Good thing, because I'm going to be away from the studio (and press!) for the better part of January. I was trying to cram in as much as I could manage this week.

Once again, this print was carved in MDF with a Dremel, printed using Daniel Smith w/s relief inks on cream Rising Stonehenge paper. I think the dimensions are about 9"x7", and I managed a final edition of 6.

Pig finished

I spent the last few days finishing off the pig print, and it's finally done today. The more I work with the MDF and the Dremel tool, the happier I am with them.

This print was done with the Daniel Smith water soluble relief inks. I am very happy with their performance, too. I don't think that those inks were slipping during my Xocoatl print, but I am now positive that it was the black linoleum stretching instead. It's printed onto cream Rising Stonehenge paper; the colours of the photos are a little off. So if you look at the paper as being cream, that'll give you an idea of what the print should look like; these photos are a little too cool/blue.

The second colour was a pink made by mixing some permanent red and a little yellow ochre into the pink I'd used in the first layer.

The fourth layer is about 50/50 ink/medium mix, with mostly yellow ochre and a very little amount of burnt umber. I wanted the pink to come through more than if I'd just used yellow ochre straight out of the tube.

The final layer is a dark brown made up of quite a mix: there's a wee bit of phthalo blue, some yellow ochre, burnt umber, and a bit of mars black.


I'm very pleased with this print. I feel that I really captured the pigginess of the sow. I really like the colours that I used, too.