InSpire-ation

 

InSpire-ation

16” x 20”
Watercolor

In October we took a quick trip to Santa Fe for my birthday to look at art. We probably walked a hundred miles and saw plenty of art (some good, some not so good). It was awesome! As we wandered the galleries along Canyon Road, we came across L’Ecole Des Beaux Arts, a studio that sells beautiful handmade watercolors.

It was love at first sight. It was all I could do to limit myself to just a few colors. Clint patiently waited while I took forever to decide on what to buy. Had I recently won the lottery I would have bought at least one of everything.

I couldn’t wait to get home and try out my new colors—and on the way home, I found inspiration along highway 84. This road is one of my favorites. From Tierra Amarilla to Abiquiu, it is a visual delight; and when the sun is low in the sky, it’s breathtaking.

I can’t tell you the name of this feature, however I always seem to snap a photo of it as we near the end of a long, spectacular valley filled with amazing geological features and rocks of every color of the rainbow.

I used a couple of wonderful earthy browns, the luscious pale purple, and a yummy metallic copper from L’Ecole Des Beaux Arts in this piece. I can’t wait to go back and pick up a few more colors!

A Frugal (sort of) Experiment

 

 

 

Landscape Layers

6" x 9"

Relief print

I ordered linoleum plates from a company in the UK that were sized to a UK standard, however they came at such a good price, I thought it would be easy enough to cut them down to 8” x 10”. Relief printing plates are not cheap, so I saved the strips of material I cut off, thinking I’d do something with them eventually.

Well, one day I got the idea to carve the various leftover 8” x 1.5” pieces into “layers” of landscape. I cut a river, pine trees, 2 cloud versions, mountains, and hills. Then, I experimented with arranging the strips in different ways. 

Good idea, but poor outcome. I liked sections of the prints, but overall, they were a disappointment. An artist friend commiserating with me over the failure brilliantly suggested I cut them up and make cards out of them. They turned out GREAT and I sold them all!

Next, I experimented with the same plates on black paper—this time, with some success! I played around with more opaque colors and discovered I could use the pine tree plate right side up AND upside down! The colors on the black paper really popped nicely and created a unique result. 

I sold two of the prints in the series, and one of the buyers requested a companion piece that would be different, but compatible with the print they purchased.

Easier said than done.

About 20 prints later, I came up with a couple of options, one of which was chosen by my client (yay!). But what to do with all the leftovers? Some worked, some did not. Again, I did a little creative cropping and trimming and ended up with some nice pieces and a few cards! 

Catching Up - Part 3

 

Manter Creek
8” x 10”
Multicolor Relief Print

Several years ago, we went on a backpack trip into the Domeland Wilderness in California. It is a remote, little-known wilderness that burned about 10 years before our trip. This resulted in an incredible landscape with patches of standing and fallen burnt trees intermingled with baby trees that sprouted after the fire, as well as tremendously large trees the fire left behind. The trail was challenging. We had to climb over and crawl under more trees than we could count.

We camped on Manter Creek, an oasis surrounded by land that had mostly burned. The cool of the creek in the heat of September was a delight at the end of each day. The nights were surprisingly cool, so the campfire was a welcome addition to our circle of friends.

Over the four-day trip, we only saw two people and a couple of rattlesnakes. One night, a pack of coyotes ran through our camp yipping like wild teenagers whose parents were out of town.

Here is the piece with only three color plates completed.

 

It was the wildest and most beautiful place I’ve ever been. I created several paintings and monoprints from this trip. The idea for this piece is taken from one of those paintings. Having a familiar subject allowed me to explore technique and color in the process of creating the prints.

 

Wild Iris
8” x 10”
Multicolor Relief Print

I love Wild Iris. It was rare to see them in the San Gabriel Mountains of California. But here in Colorado, there are fields of them in early summer. Especially after a wet winter. It’s truly incredible.

This piece was also taken from a watercolor painting I did of an Iris that was a delightful surprise on a trail we hiked frequently. It was a “reward” after climbing a fairly steep hill that was deeper into the hike. You know, past the point where the casual hikers wearing tennies and carrying a 12 oz. bottle of water give up on “hiking”?

 

Here, you can see the partially completed prints.

Something unique about this piece is that I mixed the plate colors in such a sequence that I didn't have to wash my inking surface between colors. I went from pale yellow to coral, then pink, on to green, blue, and then black. This created color harmony as each succeeding color had a little of the previous color in it.

What I’ve been up to, Part 2

 

A Very Old Friend
8” x 10”
Relief Print

I was browsing through old sketchbooks when I came across a drawing I made several years ago. This weathered tree, stood near the beginning of the trail that takes you to the top of Mt. San Jacinto in California (a peak I hiked years later). 

To get to the trailhead, you travel between two different worlds. You must take the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway from the desert floor up and over the rugged and deeply cut Chino Canyon to a station at Mt. San Jacinto State Park, which sits at an elevation of more than 8,500 feet.

In just minutes, you move from the heat of the desert to the forest. And it is a stunning forest! Our hike to the top of Mt. San Jacinto (10,800+ elevation) was one of my favorite hikes.

The Process

Finding some success with smaller pieces, I moved to a larger 8” x 10” sized plate for this project. It took several sessions in the studio to cut the image. In fact, I think I had to scrap the first version and had to carve this image twice.

I have to say the anticipation is excruciating—not knowing whether it will turn out until you pull that first test print. And getting a good result requires the perfect amount of ink on the plate, the perfect paper dampness, and then, carefully and thoroughly rubbing the paper against the plate to fully transfer a solid image.

 

Winter Morning
8” x 10”
Multicolor relief print

Early one winter morning after a snow storm, we were traveling on a road that takes you through gently rolling hills of ranches and farms. It was a lovely morning and I admired the golden tufts of grasses determinedly poking through the blanket of white.

The clouds were incredible: billowy and purple, the bottoms heavy with moisture. A band of purple-black clouds drifted in front of them, while the sky above was a persistent blue. When we got home that day, I made color sketches from memory that I later used for this project.

This piece was an experiment in texture and pattern and learning how to manipulate ink opacity and value. The prints I made had a broad range of color intensity and coverage—no two were alike.

 

Diné Country    
10” X 8”
Multicolor Relief Print

This piece is taken from a photo I took on our way back from a trip to California between Shonto and Page, Arizona along Highway 98. This rock feature sits in the middle of an interesting canyon—it’s my favorite section of road. And, it looks different every time we see it. I have countless photos of it!

There’s something about coming back home to Colorado across the Navajo Reservation. I love the big skies, wild washes, and familiar mesas and mountains; we count the landmarks as we make our way home. When we see Sleeping Ute Mountain, it feels as though we’re nearly there.

I hand-colored one of the prints before experimenting with additional color plates. Here I continued to struggle with registration and the right amount of ink. It’s easy to squirt out more ink than you need—and dang!—it’s expensive!

What I’ve been up to, Part 1

After a long hiatus, it’s time to return to providing regular updates to this blog! I’ve continued my adventures in art and will share what I’ve created over the past 2 ½ years.

Relief prints have been my passion and continue to be a major part of my art exploration. Since my earliest efforts to create multicolored block prints, I think I’ve come a long way, however I learn with each new project—and that’s what it’s all about.

 

Portrait of a Magpie

5” x 7”
(Artist’s proof – the “white” feathers were intended to be blue in the final print)

After the first “crude” pieces, my next effort required several visual references and drawing time to capture the subject, the magpie! I love this little guy! Magpies have striking black and white markings, with a flash of blue on their wing feathers in the right light.

They can be rather obnoxious if they take a disliking to you. A couple who bought a print of this fellow from me said the magpies hanging around their ranch regularly teased and tormented their dog. It seems that many people have a love-hate relationship with magpies. So far, I love them.

When it came to adding color, I had some registration issues with my blue plate due to inconsistent plate sizes. But I was happy with the image and experimented with adding color using colored pencils. To my delight, the results were good and I sold them all!

 

My next project: Winter Moon Tree

For our anniversary, we went to Taos for a weekend. It was early November, and the high country was blanketed by an early snow. The route we took was beautiful, eventually winding to the top of a plateau, where this lone tree stood in a field of snow. I added the moon. 😊

 

 

Winter Moon Tree
4” x 6”
Multicolor Relief Print

It took a couple of tries to get this result, which required four plates (one for each color). That’s the thing about relief prints: there are so many variables and so many things that can go wrong. When you’re cutting the image into the plates, one slip of the tool and you’ve chopped out an integral part of the image, as well as, occasionally, a chunk of finger. It was at about this stage in my journey that I managed to cut myself almost every time I was cutting a plate—tender red crescent moons on one or more fingertips. I like to say that when a piece turns out to be a success, it’s a relief.

Showtime!

In late spring, I learned of a pop-up print show Mancos Commons was presenting mid-summer. Determined to participate, in addition to the prints I’d created, I went back to some old plates and printed some new images, hand-coloring a few (since I’d discovered good results with the magpie!). It was a fun show, and I was inspired by techniques used by other artists. I sold several pieces, which spurred me to continue working with relief printing.