The ups and downs

After some troubles with my Hortoise plate,... particularly in the print stage I managed to cut my losses and understand where I went right and where I went wrong with the making of the print.  While everything looked good on the copper itself, when the time came to print, things just didn't go well and unfortunately the results were nowhere near what I had envisioned them to be.  That said, a learning experience all the same.

Following this however I didn't loose perspective of things... I made another stab at a large and ambitious mezzotint  project and what I had grasped from the first time around I was able to apply to this latest print.  Below I've posted a couple shots of the plate,... inked and non-inked.  The print itself is drying so i couldn't put anything up online yet, but I'm quite happy with the results.

Time out for play

So often do I find myself getting distracted when i'm working on a large and intense project.  Eyes start burning, and the mental energy to continue working at such intensity is on the verge of doing me in!  Well, not literally.

Anyways, I've found that the absolute best way for me to keep focused and get shit done is really just to do more stuff... but different.  Keeping a lot of different projects on my plate really helps me to dig deep on the big ones and get them done without breaking down and throwing in the towel.

I think there is nothing better than picking up a few scraps from around the studio (wherever that may be) and just making something from it. This week i saw a few pieces of rogue metal lying around at school and couldn't resist taking them on as 2-3 hour projects... enough time for me to prepare the plates, conjure up some random shit to put on them, throw 'em in acid and see what comes out on the paper.  Albeit, these are certainly not great works of art, but I think they are fun to put up on here in keeping with the daily ins and outs of working on art.

Big Shit

So in the mix, i think this particular print i have been working on has had little or no attention up on here,... and rightfully so as it is the project i go to when i need a break from doing more intensive projects.

Originally I started this plate because i had a huge piece of zinc and i just wanted to try out different techniques on it.  With that as the basis for starting it developed slowly over a couple months with about 7 different kinds of printmaking technique involved... many of which were just a first crash course attempt at learning.  I had not image pre conceived, and nor did i start with a sketch prior to touching the metal... most definitely a step in a new direction for me, particularly since I generally work with all my ducks lined up or atleast assembled before hitting the metal.

That said, it's funny how something so spontaneous, and almost stupid can turn out much better than expected. I refer to it as "my big shit"... simply something large and for lack of better words "shitty" that i work on to keep making, but to not feel overwhelmed in working on..... a place to freely make mistakes and a place where those mistakes can potentially become great points of learning!

Here's where it stands now... with hopefully more to go into it.

Major work done!

I've done some major work on my Hortoise mezzotint since I last wrote about it.  It's still not looking great as a print, but as a plate i'd say it's getting there. Have a peek at the progress....

September 19th through 25th

Quite the break. Returning to the canvas feels really good. I have not felt the much expected self doubt having taken such an indulgent rest from my paints. Perhaps this is because I explored very lovely things whilst being away. In Dublin, we visited the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.

We went to see Francis Bacon's studio which had been transported from his home in London after his death. From the walls, to the dust on the floor, one was able to be a Bacon Voyeur. The exhibit was more than just the studio, it was rife with personal effects and a looping video of an interview filmed in his studio years back.

We strolled through the permanent gallery, through rooms of Corot landscapes, and past large winterscapes made by Courbet. Just as we were leaving, my eyes found themselves pinned to Manet's Music in the Tuileries. I guess I did learn that this painting sat in Dublin somewhere along the way, but I did not remember this fact! Indeed, this painting is one of the first to mark the Impressionist movement but despite its lofty history, I was focussed on something more simple than that. Manet and his black line - will get me every time!

A sneak peek behind the scenes in the Apothecary

It's about that time for another release in the Apothecary.  I have been toiling away over the weekend to come up with my latest creation to give you all a little peak at what's to come once I complete my ongoing work on the 'Hortise'.  Like all other images from this series, this one will also be rendered as a mezzotint. Enjoy!

As Promised

As Promised, here is the print from the litho stone I wrote about in the last post.  I also added a layer of fondino colour for the glasses.

A bit of a break to make something different

After a bit of time away from working... and especially after such intense work on my mezzotint plate I was back at it this week with a few smaller side projects and a lithography workshop at school.  I thought it was a perfect opportunity to just do something totally different and work in a much less controlled way. With a fully prepped stone just begging to be tainted with ink and pastel I came up with this....  a great memory from a great night on our summer vacation in Ireland,

I have since printed the stone with some additional work that I'll post in the near future.  In the mean time enjoy the fruits of my labour this past monday morning!

150 hours in

The weather has been good and hot here in Italy! Which means even more reason to keep on trucking along with this current project and stay cool in the shade of the indoors.  I'm about 150 hours into the plate and this is what it's looking like.  In about 25 more hours of work I should be ready to pull a first proof and see where to go from there. Luck for me this is the bulk of the work in this first stage and then everything starts to move faster and easier from that point on. Subtle blends of tone and strong highlights will really start to take shape at that point.

Summer Studio Sessions

Just because school stops doesn't mean the studio closes!  I've been doing my best to keep working hard even though I've been doing lots of R&R and travelling around Italy. Since the school studio has closed for the summer I'm somewhat limited to the kinds of work I can be doing at home,... nothing toxic, and pretty much no printing.  I have however been going steady on prepping copper plates for future mezzotints. Its been a lot of hard work that has not only been physically tiring and time consuming, but has also started to take a bit of a toll on my right arm.  I've ordered a Rollerblade wrist-gaurd to combat the strain on my wrist as well as a tennis elbow brace to help stabilize my elbow as I rock.  All of this is more preventative than anything and will hopefully allow me to make these kind of prints for a long time to come.

I'm lucky right now that even though the school studio is closed, a good friend of mine has access to another print studio for the summer and has been kind enough to give me free access to proof and do small amounts of work after hours.

Most notably I managed to complete the rocking on my large 30cmx30cm plate for the Hortise as well as the initial tracing. These steps are always the most dull steps the process so now its all just fun and games as I work to make the copper come alive with an image.

On the side I've been making a few small plates for fun... nothing worth of writing about, but surely they will get filled with imagery soon!

Fugu Papilio

The Fugu Papilio  one of the rarer species of ocean dwellers.  Feeds primarily on small bits of plankton and aquatic pollens.  

I Managed to finish the plate and pull some good prints for this mezzotint this past week.  Really happy with the results, however it was a real challenge cleaning the plate for print.  Those familiar with mezzotint will know that when you ink the plate you cover the surface entirely with colour... in this case black.  The entirely inked surface is then wiped very gradually and delicately with tarlatan cloth to remove excess ink.  There exists a very fine line between an over-wiped plate and one that is not wiped enough, and somewhere between those two extremes (not extreme at all) is the perfect polish.  This is a really difficult point to arrive at, and takes a great deal of practice to achieve and to recognize that point.  When looking at a properly cleaned plate it will often look much much darker than what it will look like on the paper... and for me it proved to be the barrier to overcome with printing this plate as I would consecutively over wipe and have results that would render at texture that was far to strong.

Sadly, this picture doesn't quite do justice to the print....  however, so is the nature with most photographs of prints and paintings.  In the case of  this photo the texture appears far grainer than it really is, in favour of showing a relatively accurate representation of the tonal values.

Enjoy the Fugu Papilio

June 21st through 27th

Some weeks just get the better of you. There is not at least three times every day that I think about/scheme/plot a schedule to paint either later that evening or the next day. When a week passes and you just cannot seem to shake off tiresome work days or events, the pressure from not working starts to build. But I have to let that be for now. I am embarking on three weeks in Russia Mongolia and China on the Trans Mongolian rail way. I am bringing my sketcher set with me and hope to post along the way but I know that internet access will not realistically be a daily occurrence.

The below is what I have done in the past 1.5 weeks - one single session from two Tuesdays past.

The Apothecary Grows!

Here is my next concept rendering for the apothecary mezzotint series....

I think this one will be a little ambitious, but I already have the plate rocked, so I get to start soon! That said, because the studio is shut for the summer it won't actually come to life until the fall.  I'm hoping that this one will be joined by another in a larger 2-plate print.

First Proof

After about 60 hours of work burnishing work (on top of another 10 to prep the plate) I have finally arrived at my first proof of my current mezzotint.  Because this image is quite detailed it takes quite a while to reach this point.  It's far from done, but all of the basic elements are well starting to take form and from this point on this start moving much quicker between proofing. 

I also nailed down appropriate ink for this plate which was based on my last mezzotint.  I used 70% Charbonel #55981 black and 30% Transparent base.  I also used the better of the 3 presses we have access to in our studio... something that i think will work to my advantage as I go forward with this print.

From here i will start to soften the overall shading and start to bring in more refined texture. I'll also have to create the floor element which has yet to be developed.  With about 30 more hours this print should be good to go to edition!!!

More from the Apothecary

On the heels of Sacha's last post I thought I'd put up the progress on my latest mezzotint plate.  It's a HUGE challenge for me, and will take a lot more time than the last mezzotint I did. So far there has been about 35 hours that have already gone into this plate and I have yet to pull a proof. Hopefully in the next couple days I'll get a proof and can put it up then.

June 7th through 13th

I have started the under-painting. I use acrylic paints and always use the same colours - burnt umber, burnt sienna and mars black. Under-painting can serve a multitude of purposes. Chiefly known through glazing techniques, it provides a framework for the image to rest on so that the painter can experiment. I rely on the under-painting to be a map of the image so I can fuss around with non forgiving oil paints and colour mixing.

It also gives me a chance to explore the lightest lights and darkest darks of the piece and to make decisions about line and form.

Note- this image is a detail.

Canis Mykiss

Well after a hell of a print session last week the dust settled and I was left with the Canis Mykiss.

I had number of struggles along the way which all stemmed from one large problem off the bat.... I changed presses.  In theory one press should be the same as the other, but also in theory it shouldn't. In this case the press that I had been proofing on before going to my final prints was much different and because of this it was a battle of adjusting inks, press blankets, pressure, and then ultimately realizing my folly.  Sadly, because of the nature of mezzotint and it's limited number of prints I was only able to get about half of what I had originally planned for this edition.  That said, this particular print is only the beginning of a large body of work that I'm starting to dip into, and it functions as a great point to learn and take the next print to the next level!

May 31st through June 6th

To project my image, it has to be dark. Summer evenings seem never to part with the light. Now that is normally a lovely thing, but when you are exhausted from your work day and thinking only of getting to bed, waiting for dusk to take its last bow tests even a glaciers patience.

The below shot is a detail of the work so far. My apologies for the awful quality, it is hard to get a meaningful image when the pencil lines are so faint.

I am so excited to have my first steps of the piece complete!

The Apothecary is Growing

Just as I have finished the plate for the Trouthound mezzotint (soon to be proper named according to it's genus), I have also finished the next addition to the apothecary.  I have yet to formally give this guy a name, but it will soon have one! In the mean time, have a look...

May 23rd through 30th

The March Of Maruice Del Taco

I was involved in a silkscreen workshop this past week and i thought it would cool to post a little something that came of it. It wasn't my first experience with silkscreen, but that said it was my first formal training with it.  I haven't done a lot of work with silkscreen and paper before and this gave me a chance to do just that.

Here is the original drawings on vellum. The 3 different layers are overlapped to see what the concept for the print is broken down as the necessary separated layers.  I drew this with black marker, ink and litho-crayon.  After the screens were exposed separately using the vellums.

Below is the final print... The March Of Maruice Del Taco!

May 17th through 23rd

I pulled an old acrylic painting that I made in 2nd year art school off of its stretcher to use for my next painting, only to find that the stretcher was warped. A frustrating discovery. Especially on the heels of the You-Lost-Your-Staple-Gun-Again purchase.

I bumbled around my house looking for something to draw. I opened cupboards and drawers, watching for a little still life to appear, something with character. This time I elected to sketch something that is not normally appealing to me. Products that have modern packaging are not romantic enough to light up on my radar. There is not enough history with them, no real connection to my past - well not yet.

Inked Mezzotint Plate

Inking a mezzotint plate is a really cool thing because it's a chance for me to see the potential of what my hard work can become. In the initial stages of making and preparing the plate what we see inked isn't exactly what is the outcome on paper, but in this case it's a pretty good idea of the directions are starting to head with this print.

This was my second proofing of the plate... enjoy!

A few new bits

Just as I'm about to take off for a couple days of holiday I thought the time was right to do a quick little post before leaving.  I managed to get a very good start on my new project as well as take a shot of a larger work that I'm pushing along.

The first is a shot of the raw copper plate that I'm in the process of burnishing my apothecary image onto.  It's quite a complex image in terms of shading... particularly the glass.  I decided to show you the plate instead of the first proof as often with mezzotints you can see an image clearly on the plate long before it will ever be seen well on paper.  Initially proofs are very dark and even though they look well established on the copper it's a long process of developing each shade further and further with more burnishing.  This is after the first state of burnishing....

This second image is part of a more experimental etching that I'm working on.  It's unique for me because it's quite large.... the sheet of paper here is about 18"x24"... large for me at least.  It also makes use of a lot of different techniques... aquaforte, soft ground, sugar lift, pastello, and in the end it will be tinted with aquatint... and possible a little bit of spit bite for some atmosphere.  Anyways, it is totally experimental and on the fly... no sketch before, just working straight onto the plate from my imagination.

Anyways, enjoy!

May 10th through 16th

I am taking my time formatting the image to fit the canvas size I have chosen for my next oil painting as well as collecting all the necessary goods from the art store, hardware store and supply closet to get my canvas ready.

As this does not make for terribly interesting photos, I am sharing a photograph of this weekends plein air sketching session that my wonderful mother and I had. Pictured below is our impromptu set up and our model, the rhubarb plant, of course!

Building The Apothecary

I was doing a bit of nosing around in some old print books at school and also in and around some antiques markets the past few weeks.  It got me really inspired about  the thought of my very own Apothecary or bio lab... only filled with strange and wonderful fictitious creatures. It got me thinking about building a curio-cabinet filled with them... or rather a series of pictures that I could hang up on the wall.  I figured it would be fun to see if I still knew what to do in the photo-illustration world... seemed to be the best route for creating these kind of images the way my mind envisioned them. I tinkered around for a bit and came up with my first little creature.

I present to you the Trout Hound...

From here I'm thinking I'll see if my skills are up to snuff with mezzotint and start to turn this first creation into something dark and velvety on paper! I think it's just begging to be done and I can guarantee it will be months away. Anyways, thought I'd post the sketch up here. Enjoy!

April 26th through May 2nd

Anslem Kiefer is a German artist working today. I first met his work projected on the wall of my European Art: 1960's -1980's class at art school. I have been enamored ever since. Maybe it is because his work deals with a past he just cannot seem to out run, or because he idolizes objects like train tracks, olive branches, and books to carry his message from decade to decade.

His work is on a huge scale, which is both jarring and apoplectic. At the same time, I have always felt that he is telling me a secret. There are fragilities dusted all over his work - they feel like little whispers.

Heavy Print Sessions

Hi all...

been really keeping at it in the studio this past week with lots of printing going on. Things lightened up a bit so naturally it was time to get heavy into printing editions for a lot of my unfinished work.  Here are a couple things that came out of this weeks efforts.

First, a second attempt at mezzotint.  I wasn't able to quite capture the quality and essence of this print in my scans,... but it's good enough for here. I love the texture that comes with mezzotint... and with some real tinkering with inks i was able to really soften the image to something I was happy with.

Next is the metal engraving that corresponds to my drawing from a couple posts ago.

You can check out all the rest of the finished work up on my etsy site.  There I have posted a couple of prints that were featured on here, but were never shown in their completion... do check them out as they are quite different now.

That's all she wrote for now!

April 19th through 25th

Gaston Bachelard writes in his study 'The Poetics of Space', that "a house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability.".

I ardently believe this.

Waiting for the tap water to turn from cold to warm, lost in thoughts of the day, my eyes fixed themselves on the counter. This is such a generic scene but by plucking it out of the messy kitchen, cropping it, painting it, we are asked to examine it as something more ... well phenomenal.

Simple print

I've been super super busy with printing larger prints and their respective editions this week... most of which I will print when they are finished and dried. Lots has changed with my kitchen series for prints, and each has taken on a new look and a more polished, finished look at that... I'll probably put those up sometime next week.  I also continue with a new-ish mezzotint which I'm much happier with than my first attempt... I'll probably even edition it too!  

In the meantime however, I had a little time to do a quick small print using just aquaforte and aquatint yesterday.  It was for a card that I was putting together and thus it had to be small and fast. It's about 2 inches x 2 inches and was also a total deviation from my usual style,... something I probably wouldn't do normally, but because of it's purpose it was fitting. That said, it's a little project that I thought was worth sharing. Enjoy!

April 12th through 18th

Most often I am painting in the evening. Sometime between tools down for the day and before the water boils for dinner. When dusk begins, white light gets replaced with blue light. In this moment I cannot read colour. My eyes work hard to try and adjust but they cannot. This is an involuntary break, where I am given a moment to consider the work before me. There have been some great developments born from this forced contemplation - this portrait suffered no exception. I am beginning to move past my frustration with the foundation of the portrait. I am beginning to see the personality of this man.

This photo was taken at dusk. One of the last of this weeks forced contemplations!

Everyday Superhero

A little nugget from my sketchbook this week.

April 5th through 11th

Toronto. I am hyper aware of even the smallest things embracing me back - the quality of light, stretching out my toes in my own bed, the water pressure in the morning shower. There is a window of time that I will be able to see and feel these warmth's before I am fully re-adjusted to my old routine and I am dutifully aware of how important this is to my work.


Although the break from this portrait was needed - to give perspective, to allow my frustrations to settle down - I am still quite nervous about it. But there are always pathways one can take that can start a slow brewing of confidence. In this case, I decided to literally ignore the mouth and chin (an area I feel is unsuccessful at this stage) by placing paper on top. I started working on different areas without the influence of the disaster lurking below.

Not As Planned

It's easy for us to tout our successes, but sometimes things don't go quite as planned and you end up with something you just don't feel great about no matter how hard you work at it.  After 3 tries... probably about 50+ hours of work... and a hell of a lot of strain on both my body and mind my first attempt at mezzotint turned out like this:

I'm trying to think of this as a learning experience rather than a complete failure, but nonetheless its definitely a tad disheartening to work so hard at something and not meet your expectations. Bummer!

Still smiling though and moving on to bigger and better things!... more mezzotint to come. (-_-)!

Melbourne Week Eight

My final days in Melbourne have been mostly spent staring at art. I have known about Ron Mueck's work since the Sensationalist group show in the UK but to see it is another story completely. I wondered about the effect of making art on a larger scale, how it enables the viewer to easily engage in contemplation. His work is first a feat of realism, and challenges issues like body image. For me, I am most attracted to his focus on parts of the body that its owner has a relationship with, that are unique to oneself. The shape of your toes, the wrinkles in your lips.



I walked down Melbourne's laneways spotting for the perfect seat at one of the hundreds of cafes. I loved the idea that although I knew that I would sit down to sketch a tea pot, I had no idea what it would look like, or how much of a challenge it would be to draw until I chose a seat. Of course, I was delievered a stainless steel pot, which committed me to 3 hours of concentrated sketching, and of course, a caffeine high!