I’ve been intrigued by cut-up plates and especially so after seeing Romare Bearden’s hacked-up plates at the exhibition “From Process to Print: Graphic Works by Romare Bearden” at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. (The description of the exhibition includes a pretty good Gallery Guide that you can download.)
I saw my chance yesterday when I had pummeled a gelatin plate and was just about to throw it out. I cut away three squares and quickly rolled on some acrylic paint (see previous post on quick-drying properties!). The resulting print intrigued me. Instead of tossing the plate, I bagged it and will continue hacking it up today.
These prints were made with a much larger agar plate that sat around for two days. Its edges started to crack, but cutting them off was a simple matter (and if you are experimenting, don’t forget that all gelatin-plate scraps go in the garbage, not the sink).
I was surprised that the plant material I placed on the plate actually pierced the surface of the gelatin. The delicate surface takes some getting used to. As I rolled out the acrylic paint I could sense that the gelatin plate should be thicker (perhaps 0.5 inch) so that it wouldn’t creep under the roller.
I’m making do with acrylic paint, which has the charm of drying fast on the finished print and the un-charm of drying fast on the palette. This discovery will help justify the long drive to Artist and Craftsman in Portland to buy some water-based inks.
On my own I worked out a recipe for a gelatin plate based on agar agar (bought in the form of seaweed, not flakes). I learned that although the gelatin is firm it will break with the least provocation. I provoked it plenty and the gelatin shattered.
Undaunted, I rolled on some acrylic paint and got a sense of how the paint transferred to paper.
Next will be a bigger plate and I will refrain from “provoking” it.
With many thanks to Anne Garland and Lou Lipkin, I had a wonderful afternoon of printmaking with a gelatin plate. We experimented with water-based relief inks from Speedball, Daniel Smith, and Akua. Some of the inks rolled out beautifully, others smeared (like melted butter on a metal sheet), and yet others were sticky and stretchy and failed to come off the brayer! The photos show our first efforts.
I ran into a post of Mail Art by Sue Angebranndt a while ago. Then for Christmas the book she discussed arrived from my friend Cathy. Not a coincidence, I suspect.
I have decided to try to start mail art exchanges with a few friends while I am meeting the demands of a chemotherapy. I will post examples as they arrive.
April Vollmer (standing in the foreground of the first photo) came up from New York City to give a weekend workshop at Peregrine Press. She gave the members a thorough introduction to Japanese woodblock printing (moku hanga). We carved our blocks and printed an edition of ten (samples shown below). It was a busy day and a half! Many thanks to Lou Lipkin (on the left in the photo) for making this dream come true.
Watch this animation. It portrays the formation of chromosomes and the production of proteins. If you studied this stuff in high school or college, it’s a great knitting together of information. If you haven’t studied this stuff, here’s a good place to start.
I’ve tried to resist, but some of the clothes the New York Times is showing for Fashion week are just like a happy dream. I’m not sure if they’d be fun to wear, but oh, to touch them and to dream of making them!
It’d be easy to spend hours gawking virtually.
