Ceci n'est pas une pipe

This week I have turned attention to the pipe below the sink. As an introduction to something I have never painted before, I have been studying many images including verdigris rusting, hoping some of what I see will help me to translate something realistic to the canvas. I have collected images and tacked them to my canvas. Direct references are only one part of my practice. Having inspiration or work I admire present is so very encouraging.



Lucien Freud painted Two Japanese Wrestlers By a Sink in 1983. I first saw this thumbing through a book at college, when Freud was a prominent influence for me. The image has stuck with me through the years, perhaps because there is not very much still life work in his catalog, but mostly because it taught me that still life can show so much movement.


Josephine Halvorson is a contemporary US painter. I met her work a few months ago through a blog post on New American Paintings. Her effort is to focus on uber mundane things. Her painting's subject images we can sink our teeth into, like this door with chipping paint, however she also takes her subject matter into obscurity. Works of elusive factory machinery and construction barriers leave their mark on the viewer. I find her work exciting and powerful.

Her image is tacked to my canvas also because it is a admirable example of white, chipping paint which I will consider as I work on the white part of the pipe.



Antonio Lopez Garcia is a Spanish realist painter. I happened on this painting during quite a random Google image search and I am so very happy that I did. I am absolutely enamored with his paintings! His still life images strike as very similar to how I would like to make a still life image. He makes his paintings from life and over years, coming to sit each day in the same place at the same time, until the next day, when he resumes his seat. I find it incredibly interesting to think that his relationship to this painting marks the years passing, adding a biographical consideration.

A lovely introduction to his work can be seen here.

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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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Fall to Winter

We're Back! About three months ago, Laine and I were having end of summer pints discussing our commitment to our work. It seemed silly that we stopped our weekly posts and so the decision was made to bring it back to life.

I am 24 sits into this painting at the moment. The details are staggering. The faucet knobs pictured below illustrate my process and how I paint and repaint to try to get the work to look the way that I see it in my mind. The left shows the knob with around 5 hours put into it, the right, I can only guess, around 7. What is interesting is that when I took the photo of the one on the left, I felt quite satisfied with it, thinking that it was adequately representational.

But then as I continued with other parts of the painting, my eyes would carry over to it and a gripping dis-satisfaction started to creep in. I started re working and repainting it and I am happy that I did so, because the patterns that have started to appear now in the reflections and the sculpture are so much closer to the way my mind imagines it.

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.

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.