Relief Printmaking at Ghost Ranch, August 2013

Belatedly, I want to write about this year's trip to New Mexico and making my dream come true about spending a week at Ghost Ranch. I had heard of the place as the home of Georgia O'Keeffe, but only in recent years heard about the conference center and classes there from a friend who has taught writing classes there.  She told me about the printmaking class she wanted to take this year, and invited me to go along with her.  Although the Ghost Ranch experience was much more than the class itself, I will stick to writing about the class for this post.

The class was taught by Laura DeLind, an anthropologist and artist at Michigan State University, known for her linocuts.  Her prints are usually in black and white and feature natural objects and whimsical animals.  In this class, we got right down to the business of carving linoleum with Speedball carving tools and printing the result with an oil-based ink on different kinds of paper.  While making the cuts was tedious, that part was easy compared to the actual printing.  Getting a clear and even image without smudging was the hardest part for me.  Here is our class on our last work day with our latest prints hanging up to dry:

Here are the linocuts that I made.  The black in the cut linoleum is the part that was cut away (I couldn't clean out the ink after printing), and the lighter gray is what made the print. In other words, you have to cut the reverse of what you want to print.  If using words, the letters need to be cut backwards.  That's a little tricky when doing fancy letters, as I did in the block on the lower left.  I'll let you guess what it says :)

 And here are two prints that I made.  The first was an exercise to use a border and words.  The second was an exercise of using patterns to define spaces.

The "Ouch" linocut could be used to make a funny "get well" card if a friend has an accident, but I hope I don't have to use it.

More later about the New Mexico trip and Ghost Ranch.

A new technique! Monoprinting with the Gelli plate

A few weeks ago, I caved in to the urge and bought a Gelli plate.  Having read about it and watched some videos on line, I knew this would be fun and addictive.  And it is!! An hour after my Gelli plate arrived in the mail, I had had run out of space to let them dry, so I made myself quit and drafted this post, which I then forgot to publish.  Since then, I have probably made more than a hundred monoprints on various kinds of paper, including deli paper, which I have added to my stash for collage.

Just a note about the technique, in case you have been out of the country and not heard about it yet :)

The Gelli plate is similar to the kind of gelatin printing plate that is made at home with plain gelatin; however, this one is more permanent - can be used over and over without having to refrigerate.  I've used various kinds of acrylic paint with them and found that student grade acrylic paints work great.  Some acrylic glazing medium helps extend the work time.

Go to Gelliarts for examples, tutorials and purchase.  Art supply companies also carry them.  

New Mexico Art Adventure - 2011 - Printmaking

Blue skies, snow-topped mountains, pronghorns, and chili peppers greeted and delighted the WV and Ohio artists attending the 2011 New Mexico Art Adventure sponsored by Shrew'd Arts and led by artist Amy Flowers.  This year's theme was exploring the printer's art, with inspiration from the work of New Mexico's master printer, Gustave Baumann.

Our first day was spent in Santa Fe, where we visited the Governor's Palace Print Shop that features a reproduction of Baumann's studio with his actual furnishings, equipment and supplies.  The wall with his arranged pigments is an artwork in itself.

The curator explained the process Baumann used for his woodcut prints and showed us other printing presses and examples of books and other material printed there.  We went on to the NM Museum of History which currently has an exhibit of pages from the St. John's Bible.  The gorgeous artwork and calligraphy of Donald Jackson and his colleagues almost took my breath away.

For the rest of the week, we went on North to Cimarron, where we were inspired by the beauty of the mountains and worked on our art at the Casa del Gavilan. With guidance from Amy, we began carving rubber blocks and making monotype prints.  We also spent one day in Taos where we visited a print maker and watched a chine colle' in progress.

We used Golden Open Acrylic paints as our "ink" because it is slow-drying and mixes well with other media.




Here are some of the prints I made using different techniques and papers.