Ready For Proofing

The momentum is flowing here in the studio and I've made it all the way to this point with my plate in a mater of a couple days.  For something of this size and detail, I think it's pretty good pace for me!




From this point I'm ready to do a first proof of the plate and then make the necessasary adjustments to values from there.  At this stage I think things are looking pretty good and should only need bumping of tones to get them where I want for the finished print.

Tomorrow I'll start work on another plate which is about 6 times larger than this one~

I'm Back!

I'm Back!

Thanks to a serious onslaught of freelance work, the move into a new home, and a baby.... it's been a good long minute since getting the opportunity to make anything! ;  let alone post about it :)

Anyways,  I'm back in attack for the next 3 months as I prepare for an upcoming exhibition late September.

As of 2 days ago, I've begun the process of preparing the first of a body of print-work I'm expecting to complete for the show.

While the show may or may not be exclusively mezzotint work, I'm staying true to working in this technique to start, and we'll see if thing diverge from there.  This small 4x6 plate is the beginning of what i'm hoping will be a series of  6-10  small prints in the same vein.

I'll be starting in on 4 larger 30cm x40cm plates next week that will follow the same tangent as this print completed earlier this year.



Enjoy!

Boat boy

I began work on the image for my most recent plate this week. I'm still fully developing my ideas for a series of work , but this is the first sneak-peak of what's to come.

New Plate!

After putting to rest an old project and having a successful opening, it's time to move onto new things! I'm looking to start pushing my work in a different direction through the winter and into the warmer months.

Working in Mezzotint will continue to be at the root of my creative process. With only a small number of artists actually out there and using this technique I've found it challenging to troubleshoot when things aren't going according to plans. I feel like I'm always learning new things with each project, and making new discoveries about bettering my process.

I was recently given this amazing book by artist and author Carol Wax about Mezzotint, and it's more or less the only book out there on the subject. If there were a bible for the technique, this would be it! It's been instrumental in helping me along the way, particularly as if late.

I'm currently experimenting with better ways to prepare the surface of my plates and really minimize the physical impact and strain it has on my body. I think I'm making great strides! Here's what I've found:

1. Rocker MUST be sharp! Also, Sharpen often. Below us a picture of the sharpening jig I made which has the rocker hook onto a mount and pivot from left to right across the sharpening stone at the same angle as the teeth of the rocker blade. Works like a charm!

2. Pressure MUST be consistent. I added a sharpening stone as a weight to my rocking pole to keep pressure constant and consistent... And it saves me on putting strain on my body!

3. Be precise about rocking directions. 0 deg, 15 deg , 30 deg, 45 deg.... And so on until a full rotation of the plate has been made.

As I take these considerations into account for prepping this plate, I'm seeing some real results which I think will really serve to help make the final print a great success! Below is also a picture of the plate texture that i'm creating.

Finally!

So i finally nailed it! After 3 laborious attempts at completing this print I finally got a good proof and I'll now print the edition. I'll leave it at that... What a relief!

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Time to get cookin'!

Well clearly it's been a long time... in fact one might have thought we were  done!   It seems that both of us got way too caught up with life and making things that there simply wasn't any time left to get on here and blog about it all, but guess what!... we're back, and have lots of things in the works for the winter months.

I'm going to hold out on posting anything about my current project because it's actually a V 3.0 remake of my Tortoise-hare mezzotint from about a year and a half ago.  Long story short was that it was completely botched from the way I originally prepared the plate, and subsequently that showed through in the final print.  Currently I'm in the final stages of getting the image scraped out onto a newly prepared plate and should have some better results and some images soon.

It's funny how such epic failure (maybe not so epic, just time consuming) can be a great point to make some major strides.  I realized that I needed to get better rocking on my plates and it needed to be even, and a strong, and save my wrist from strain.  I devised this little device to help me out from here on in.  It's actually a very simple construction but it works like a charm and not only saves my wrist, and gives great texture to the plate,... it cuts my prep time in SIGNIFICANTLY!  

I'll leave on a hight note with lots more to come as we push towards the colder months, and the new year! 

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.

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....

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!

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

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.

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!

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...

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!

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!