Art & Soul Stencil & Printing

Here are just a few of the stencil self portraits that came out of the classroom. I was so busy running inside and out that I missed photographing some wonderful work.

After we prepared our collages and sprayed our stencils we finished with a coat of encaustic medium. This kept us pretty busy as you can imagine.

Plus cutting the stencils. So many decisions.

I'm going to try to do some of these techniques with misters instead of the toxic paint in a can. The fumes are really something.

But oh, the beauty of that opaque black paint is hard to beat.

Then I taught a class where we made nature prints with brayers, cut rubber stamps, pulled prints from gelatin, made masks and more. Another busy day with lots of physical movement about the room.

We printed papers to use in our journals and for other projects using feathers, leaves and masks that we made ourselves.

We pulled monoprints.

Made prints in positive and negative from the masks we made.

Tried various water-based inks including Akua, Speedball and Createx.

For the gelatin prints we used acrylic paint. Primary colors plus black.

Here are some of the results.

It was fun.

And exhausting.

After the students left three young men came in who worked for the hotel and showed great interest in what we had been doing all day. They hardly looked older than high school students and my heart went out to them, laboring at mundane jobs just as I had been at their age. The first question they asked was if you had to go to college to be an artist. (My answer was no, just do it.) Then they wanted thorough explanations of how the prints were made and asked to look through my journals. Finally their boss came in and I was afraid I'd gotten them into trouble but he was interested too and had his own litany of questions. Finally he took my hand-out which I offered and made prints for the boys and himself so that they could have the recipe for the gelatin and directions for making the prints.

Once again I reflect on the pull art has on all of us. That these workmen were fascinated by the process and loved the beauty of the colors spread out on the trays before them. Art is innate. Art is a joyful dance. Everyone loves to push around color, to play and make beauty. Sometimes I feel like I am at the intersection between human beings and something transcendent. There is magic in making art. This is the magic I love to share.

What's Cookin'

Look what came in the mail yesterday!! A couple of weeks ago I entered into a give away on Alisa Burke's blog and I won this beautiful clutch from her. She let me choose my favorite colors and my word for 2009 (moderation - I know, laugh now). Oh, it's so much prettier in person than I could have imagined!

This is what it looks like when it is snapped shut.

And then it opens up into this deep pouch that I can imagine even puttin long papers into.

I love Alisa's work so much because she has that free loosey-goosey style going on that speaks to confidence and joy. She is teaching this August in Arizona at Art Unraveled where yours truly anticipates meeting her for the first time. You just might want to sign up for a class with her and learn her secrets. (yes, I'll be teaching there too and registration is open now.)

So what else has been going on in the studio is a giant gelatin printing fit. My list of things to do in the off season included a go at this. Printing without a press. Making stuff for my collage paper stash. Because I'm low on stuff. (more maniacal laughter)

I pulled off dozens of prints in a few hours, filling the studio floor with wet prints.

Tried out paints, inks, dyes, alcohol, and everything I could think of to try.

Masks, stencils, stamps, vegetation, direct painting on the gelatin.

I'll be offering a class this fall with my compadre on printing without a press. She is a whiz at this and I love hanging with her so this will be pure delight.

In an earlier lifetime I was a maker of etchings and that was incredibly challenging and fun.

We want this class to be fun without being that challenging.

The hardest thing about making these kinds of monoprints is stopping once you've started.

Because your imagination is saying, "what happens if I try that (piece of texture)? " and soon you're running all over the studio upending everything in your haste to throw stranger and stranger objects on the gelatin.

It's very cool.

I may do some more today if I can find my brayers under all the clutter.

Okay, that's the end of the show and tell. You were a very good audience.

We'll finish up with the latest journal page. Bits and pieces. Memories and dreams from the daily mill. And this parting thought; that our waking life is only half the story. In dreams, actual deep sleep, lives another life more strange and wonderful than what we sense during our "waking" hours. That's what I've been chewing on this week.

Addendum: Squam registration is now open too.