Colorized Classics

Way, way back in the day there was raging debate about Ted Turner and what he was doing to old movies. He was taking dumb, boring old black and white movies and modernizing and improving them with color. Of course there were those Luddites that were totally opposed to color and wanted to live back in the days before color was invented. Jerks!

Or seen the other way; here was a guy that took films that were conceived in black and white, executed in black and white, and directed so as to take full advantage of black and white for the complete visual experience and ruined them by slapping a bunch of garish, pastel girly colors.


That's what I've done here. Both of those things. I think of these images in black and white but feel compelled to watercolor them afterwards. Who's to say which is better?

Conceived in B&W

Ted Turner-ized

Original Recipe

                                       

Extra Crispy                                       

Janus Angel

In the midst of working on my brand new linocut, I have been working on another linocut. It's kind of like this:

See how cool your host is? I went so far as to go to a free meme generator for this!

I am really having a linocut renaissance here. In fact that sounds like a very cool band name...

Dude: "Did you catch the The Linocut Renaissance this weekend?"

Dude's friend: "Yeah, but they really gouged me on ticket prices. I couldn't get any relief."

This is the part where the laugh track informs you that the above dialogue was funny. So funny that you should be literally laughing out loud. Or LOL, if you prefer.

So what's this image you ask? Here it is as it appears in my all-new drawing book:

The orange on the left and blue on the right mark this image as a casualty of drawing book carnage. It happens.

The idea as it was explained to me by my friend, Ned, is that the Old Testament ends with a curse andy the New begins with hope. The angel delivering the messages pronounces fire and dread on the left and Gabriel on the right announces John the Baptist's birth.

There's more going on here, but I do not like to explain my images too much. A little here and there is okay, but too much explanation is too much explanation.

Keep looking for that new Temptation linocut; it is proceeding apace!

A New Linocut

I'm taking a short break from the drawing book excitement, not because I have no more books, but because... Well, because.

I thought I would take this break in the action to inform you about a NEW LINOCUT that I'm working on. I'm still in the drawing stages, but it promises to be a good one!

The idea for this one came to me in Lent. The idea is to make a polyptych that deals with temptation with Jesus' temptation in the wilderness as the jumping off point. I used the drawing that I wrote about on March 30th as the basis for one of the images. There will be appearances by St. Jerome, St. Anthony Abbot, St. Mary of Egypt, and others! It's meant to be a set of images for Lent and here we are out of Lent and into Easter already. But that's okay. I think the cutting of this block will take a long time. Comparable to the Cream Legbar in terms of difficulty of cutting.

I'll show more as I get it done.

Another Fish! But Not For The Reason You Think!

SPECIAL EDITION!

Several weeks ago, my wife and I had a small contest among some of our local friends and family (non-local friends and family, don't be upset!). In a move that is completely unlike us, we sent out the initials for our soon-to-be-born daughter. We had dozens of guesses for little EHC's name but only one of them was correct. The prize was a linocut of an American shad specially made for this contest. What made it great was that the winner's name is Schad and they love fish!

We also gave a print for weirdest/lamest/never-name-my-kid-that guesses. The winner here was, among many guesses Escalator Holodeck Clark. 

If you're curious, little Eva was born on Thursday afternoon. I would have put this up sooner, but, you know, new baby and all.

Coloring Pages

There are those who excel at making color prints. They will cut multiple color blocks, plan, scheme, arrange, experiment and print, print, print until they have a virtual painting of a print. Others will do all the planning and scheming but choose to do a reduction linocut or woodcut. This is even more difficult than cutting multiple color blocks. It takes A LOT of forethought and complex mental visualizations before setting out to make a piece.

Right about now you are asking yourself if I, your host and artist, do either of these things. I have in the past. But now I prefer to choose the tertium quid. I choose to color my prints. Watercolor actually. It's a ton of fun and the results can be very satisfying. Since I print my linocuts in oil based ink, it's super easy to break out the watercolors  and paint right over the black ink once it's dry. (This works because, as you know, oil repels water. When I used to work at a grocery store way, way back in my dumb youth, we would use this fascinating principle for evil. We would tell the new baggers that the salad dressings had begun to separate and that they needed to shake them all up until they were a nice consistent blend. Depending on how sharp the bagger was, he could be there shaking salad dressings for a very long time.)

Anyway, here are the results on my chicken print. You know, the print you all have been salivating over and can't wait to buy? (See the Etsy button up in the left-hand corner? Go ahead an click on it!)

Here is the original, the-way-I-always-envisioned-it black and white image.

And...... Glorious Color!

The Bird comes off the Block

After having worked on this print of one of my cream legbars for over a month (I began it on October 23rd) it was time to print it this morning. I showed up early, set up the press, cut my paper, scrubbed my block and rolled out the ink. All of these actions take on the significance of ritual when you have been looking forward to seeing a print as long as I have been anticipating this one. I held the inked brayer over the clean block briefly and savored the moment. And also my heart beat a little faster. I won't hide that from you. Printmaking is magic and one should approach it with the proper wonder and trepidation.

Here's a cool cock-eyed picture to show I'm hip and that I get the pun in "cock-eyed" when it comes to a hen.

Here we are before the plunge. There's no ink on the block yet, just the original drawing. And also many, many hours of drawing and cutting.

I took my time, building up the ink on the block slowly so as not to fill in the finer cuts and then put it on the press bed. No matter how carefully I make my cuts, it is always a surprise when I see the ink rolled on the block. It's always so much blacker, so much richer than I thought it would be. I pulled the first proof and I loved it. I even had a very small (very, very small – vanishing actually) catch in my throat! I was afraid that I had not handled all the different textures well and that the chicken had blended in with the busy, busy background; but it looks to me like everything stands out properly with all aspects of the print being clear. 

One thing that always gets me about linocuts is the fact that the final image is the reverse of the image as drawn on the block. I spend hours and hours – probably 25 or 30 for this image – looking at it one way and then have it suddenly reversed at the last minute. I always have to do a double take.

Like I said before, this is magic, pure and simple. I have the idea of a chicken, make a drawing of it, cut out and refine all the lines and then – BOOM – something that looks like what I drew, but not quite, is sitting there on the paper, fully made as many times as I care to print it.

Success! We have a chicken prowling the front yard!

Ha ha HA!

All this time you thought I was only working on my giant chicken linocut! But no! I was working on a clandestine print. It was all on the down low and very secretive. I needed some sort of a respite from all those ferns, so I switched it up to a different kind of leaf. Now, for the first time I reveal that I have been working on a linocut of sweet potato leaves!

This is an image of a common checkered skipper butterfly visiting some sweet potato blooms in my front yard. I was out tending to the ducks and chickens when I saw a few flowers on my sweet potatoes. They were a very lovely purple and white set against all the greens of the leaves. Add in a skipper butterfly and you have all the ingredients to a good linocut.

I actually made this piece for my wife who has long lamented that I don't make enough pictures with backgrounds. This is, of course, a matter of taste, but I can see her point and easily accommodate her wishes here. I enjoyed drawing and cutting this block and I look forward to watercoloring a few of them.

Look out for this print in my Etsy store in the next couple of days!

Here is the completed drawing on the block. I like a very finished drawing before I begin cutting.

After the drawing I put a very thin layer of ink over the image so I can get a clear sense of where I have already cut. 

This is the rather artfully posed block just before being readied for printing.

It needs a little cleaning up here and there, but I am well satisfied with this one.

Big Linocut Progress

It's been two weeks since I showed you my Big Linocut as I have it drawn on the block, so I thought I would give an update as to its progress so far. I made a couple of stop motion videos of my cutting process. It's a slow and tedious one – especially in the ferns.

This first video is a little choppy since I only took a picture every 5 or 10 seconds. I think it represents about a half an hour of cutting.

This one is better. I think it is smoother and it has some more fun animation aspects to it. Again, this is probably a half an hour of cutting (not including all the silly animations at the beginning).

So I have probably found five or six hours to carve on this block total. That's not a lot and as you can see, it's going to take me a while to get it cut!

A Big ol' Linocut

I started work on a new linocut. It's another chicken and this time it's a cream legbar hen. They're funny looking birds with bouffant hairdos. At 12" square this will be my largest linocut to date*.

Day 1: At this point I have about an hour and a half in this drawing. 

 

Day 2: Here I have about another two and a half hours in the drawing. Give or take.

Day 3: I've really lost track, but I probably have another three and a half to four hours in the drawing.

Day 4: Aaannnnndddd finished.

And that's it. It took maybe nine or ten hours to draw this chicken among the ferns. Many people can draw faster than me, I'm sure. But from here, I have many hours of being hunched over the block to look forward to! I actually do look forward to it. It's cliche, I know, but it is contemplative to spend such a long time at such a simple task. If I refrain from listening to music (which I don't always do) I have nothing to do but think as I work.

I don't know how long it will take to cut this block, but I'll get another post ready to go as soon as the proofs are ready to show.

*I have worked on one other linocut this size with my friend, Ned Bustard, but it was a half and half type deal.

Cutting Linoleum - The Aftermath

Isn't that a better title than "Cutting Linoleum part 2"? It sounds so ominous. It sounds like all of my predictions of perfection were ill founded and destined for failure. Well, happily that is not the case. I pulled five proofs (a "proof" is sort of like a test run for prints) and I was very happy with them all!

I was unable to wait until I had a proper block of time to print, so I hastily spread out my stuff in between classes today. I like to print my linocuts by hand if I'm only doing a few. For a larger edition, I will break out the press. In the picture below the ink and brayer (roller) are pretty self-explanatory, as is the inked block. But what is that brown disk just to the top right of the block? That is called a barren and it's a small disk that is covered with a bamboo leaf. The barren is what you use to rub the back of the paper when it is placed on the block. (Alternately, I have an old wooden spoon that has been worn to perfection over many years of use.)

My ad hoc print station

I printed on two kinds of paper. The first proof was pulled on one of those handmade Thai papers that has little bits of plant matter imbedded in the fibers (the smallest of the five proofs above). It turned out nice, but I wanted to try a different paper. Kitakata paper is a thin, silky Japanese paper that is great for relief printmaking and the remaining four proofs are printed on this paper.

The human gaze is met with a nonplussed poultry stare.

This is the resulting print. I love the lines in linocuts. They are different from drawings, I would say they are more unrefined, but that is not really true. Each of the lines in a linocut has been cut once on the left, once on the right and then further trimmed by the blade until it is just right. So if anything, the lines in a linocut are far more refined than those in a drawing. But they still retain a naive quality that drawings do not necessarily possess. Whatever the case, I really, really like them.

I am very happy with this print and will pull an edition of it in the next week or two. The edition will be limited to 25 numbered prints on Kitakata paper. In addition to this there will be 5 prints hand colored using watercolor. The prints measure 6.25" x 4". Since you are obviously dying to get your hands on one, you may purchase these prints at my Etsy shop here.

Cutting Linoleum

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me to explain the process of making a linocut... I'd have a nickel. So I'll just assume you are shy and didn't want to seem unlearned in the ways of printmaking by asking too many questions about the relief process. That's okay, I understand. In my magnanimity, I will answer the questions you didn't know you needed to ask.

The first thing I do when making a linocut is make a drawing. That may seem like a dumb thing to say, but it is by no means a given. A lot of folks just go to work on the block and see what happens in the process. Not me; I like a nice, precise drawing done ahead of time. I'm about split evenly between drawing it directly on the block and drawing it on paper first and then transferring it to the block.

Yes, I am a beautiful rooster. You may proceed with freeing me from the block.

Now that my drawing is done I'm ready to start cutting. These are the tools I typically use:

I am used to using those Speedball cutters that you used in high school. But as I was searching through the drawers here in the art room I came across the cutters pictured above. These make the Speedball cutters look like butter knives. These little blades are sharp and make some very accurate, fine line cuts. They are also very comfortable in my hand and are easy to guide.

What a lot of people don't realize is that you move the block around as much as you move your cutting hand. A lot of the time, my hand that holds the cutting tool is stationary while I move, twist and turn the block around to get the delicate lines cut. It may be counterintuitive but it really works. Take my word for it, this is the kind of invaluable information that you are paying the big bucks to read. Ahem.

It looks deceptively finished; but it really needs hours of more back breaking, shoulder-cramping work.

I like to put a very thin layer of ink on the block after I have finished drawing it. This provides a nice contrast between the surface and the areas I have already cut. When putting this layer on it is important not to ink it too heavily so you can still see your image.

And here's the image after all those hours of work:

I will print this block in the morning. Let me say that I have never, ever, ever, never cut the block perfectly on the first go-round. Many times I have cut a block, looked on with smug satisfaction and thought to myself that THIS is the time that I will have done it perfectly. There will be no touch-ups necessary this time. My skills are complete; the student has become the master. But I always have to go back and thin out some lines here, clarify some areas there. And so on. But this time, this time I have taken my time, cut with precision and I feel confident in my heart that I will pull a proof in the morning and everything will be perfect. This time.

Stay tuned to see if I am right.

Sometimes - okay, all the time - I save cast off bits and pieces of things for future use: linocuts, fragments of interesting drawings, etc. Occasionally I gather them all together and make a collage. Sometimes they really work well together. And sometimes I have to live with them for a while before I can appreciate the jammed together glory that is collage.

Lavender

Linocut and watercolor. Lavender. It smells great and looks nice in the ol' back yard.

Flowers and Trilobites

Linocuts and watercolor. Flowers and trilobites... do you need more? I think I have said elsewhere that trilobites are some of the absolute greatest of extinct invertebrates ever.