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!