Untitled
- A Good Book
- untitled
- Elemental habitats: fire
- Elemental habitats: air
- Elemental habitats: water
These are a few of my prints from past years. If you hover the cursor over the image it shows the method used to create it. The theme of this lot is cats. I have often used cats: they are favorite subject matter.
I am not good at talking or writing about art, and that has been a handicap in navigating the art world. I can say that I see a blurred line between things imagined and things “known”. I like images that are odd, funny, and beautiful. If they can be all those things at once, I have acheived a step toward my goal. If the images I make have additional meaning it should be visual and not verbal.
In this group there is one etching and the rest are either made with a wood or linoleum block. For wood I usually use plywood. I like the grain.
The reductive method works this way. The edition number is set at the beginning. A solid color is printed. I usually use black as a first color. The image is cut on the block, and a second color is printed on each piece, perhaps green. The result is a black line drawing on a green field. Then I cut out of the block whatever part of the print I want to be green, and print a third color. This way the color image is built up. Some people who work this way plan it all out in advance, using a color chart. I do it more like a painting. If I don’t like a color I have printed I don’t use much of it, if I like it I use more. So these are evolving works. They are great fun to do, but an immense amount of work. It might take a month to finish an edition.
I can’t remember how I did the colored etching, but I think I wiped the plate first in black and then added color. I believe it was all printed at one pass through the press. I only made a few prints of that one.
In future posts I will show some more of these prints, and perhaps a few paintings. I just learned to work my slide duplicator, and it broke. So for the moment I am waiting to get a new one.
Wow, Anne, these are beautiful! You really have a feel for the reduction method which requires a lot of patience and hard work. Even your colour etching amazes me, it looks like it’s been hand-coloured after printing. When did you do these? Did you have your own press and etching studio?
Those were all done a long time ago when I was in art school. I have done some since, either in the school studio (I taught a night course or two there and had access) or at another studio that where I taught classes. I presently have a nice studio and 3(!) presses, an etching press, a Vandercook and another very old letter press. But there is so much stuff stored in my studio that it is unuseable just now. I need to get back in practice.
Anne, I’m so glad you managed to post images. As Marja-Leena said, your prints are lovely and you certainly do make wonderful use of the painstaking reduction process. It’s great to learn that you are a fellow printmaker!
I don’t know if you’ve seen the section of my website devoted to artist’s books –
http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/books.html
There are quite a few examples of my prints there, mainly etchings, drypoints and collagraphs. Did you ever try the viscosity method? (Stanley William Hayter invented the method in his Paris studio)
Yes, I have done that. I found the viscosity method difficult, and I have to admit that I messed around with the plates after I got the ink on them. I didn’t find it easy to repeat, either. I guess I needed more practice, plus the rollers I had available probably were not different enough in squishyness. I’d love to try it again, if my kids ever get their stuff out of my studio.
I forgot to say Natalie, that I have looked at your prints and books and loved them. I have always wanted to make books, and have started to many times. But you have to keep at it, and I didn’t.
And, Marja-Leena, I have seen your prints on-line, and they are great. I keep thinking I’ll get my aged self up to Vancouver and see them in real life.
Oh my God, these are gorgeous! How wonderful! !!!
Anne,I hope to meet you when you come to London and we can talk about all this. Viscosity printing is indeed tricky and you do have to have the right rollers, but once you get into the routine it’s really excellent and can give an almost 3-D effect. Are your kids artists too? In any case, make them help to clear your studio so you can use it!
Gosh, these are fantastic! Glad to have found you – thanks for leaving comment on blethers.
Anne, these are lovely! And I don’t even like cats.
Wow, I’m impressed!
I like what you say about your art, about the blurred line between things imagined and things known, about liking images that are odd, funny and beautiful. That describes what you’ve done here very well!
I’m not surprised you have maybe had some difficulty navigating the art world, a lot of what I see written there is way over my head, but what you say is pretty clear and straight forward
I hope you will post more of this
Thank you for visiting my blog.
I have just found your’s (after some searching) and I like what I see very much. I hope we can meet again. Great cats.
ooh la la! When I first opened the page I wondered what these were and I didn’t expect you had done them. They’re great, though some of your cats are on the scary side!
Oh lovely……all that power and imagination. Thank you so very much for sharing these with us. Great stuff.
Oh, these are beautiful. Such detail and colour.
You don’t know how much I have enjoyed your blog. But I want to show my appreciation and enthusiasm for what you are doing by giving you a very special award, the A Hoy Award.
In order to get it just go to my blog and check out the posting:
https://maiasintothemoonlight.blospot.com
I hope this award gives you as much pleasure as it has given me, Celeste
Superb, Anne, striking and entirely original.
Oh so talented you are! I love cats, and dogs and birds…..
These are fantastic. I especially like “Fire.” You do beautiful work.
Oh what talent, Anne! I adore the “good book”. But they are all beautiful and evocative.
XO
WWW
I have been without a computer these last days, and now that it is working again I want to say that any help you need with the A Hoy Award, please let me know. I was finally able to print my Alentejo trip story.
Your cat prints are very strong, very powerful. And dreamy. They control everything. Even you the artist, and the viewer. Would love to see more.