Hikers over the mountain, printer over the moon!

The slump seems to be fading, especially after my exciting night last night. (And early morning.) I was in the studio last night finishing up my key block image. The key block is the final image in a print and has most of the details. So after finishing my key block around 12 I inked it up to see what it would look like on paper.

It looks pretty good just black and white but there is no contrat between the different shapes. So in my excitement I took a colored test proof and printed the black key block on top and....

Bam!! This just reignited my printing fire for this project! The colors, the texture, everything looked great! This called for a victory dance. Don't judge. I could get away with dancing because it was 1 in the morning and no one was around to see, also it was 1 in the morning so I needed something other then caffeine to keep me awake. 

My journey is far from over, so I couldn't rejoice too long. I have been keeping track of my time and so far each print is estimated to take about 15 hours to complete (that is if everything goes smoothly; let's not forget Art Rule #1: everything takes longer then you think.) and I have to be finishing about 2 prints every week to keep on schedule with my goals. So after working 40 hours a week to keep the lights on and mouths fed, I will be working an additional 30 hours a week to finish this project! High five for the art life! :D 

From suicide to jigsaw

After last weeks failed attempt with my first colored print I felt like I needed to rethink some things. Now, don't call your psyciatrist because I used the word suicide, just hand tight and it will all make sense. 

The next few days after printing my second color and not liking how it was going to turn out I went into a little slump. I felt deflated and unmotivated to start over which threw my schedule off a little bit. But after some encouraging strategies from my coach I cleared my head and started making progress in the right direction. 

My first obstacle to rethink was the method I would add color to my print. Originally I was going to do the "suicide method" which is a process of printmaking where you carve a little bit of the image away at a time with each color. It's all done on the same printing block so depending on how many colors you want in your print, you run the block that many times through the press. This is the process I primarily use, so some of my pictures from prior posts might be more visually explanatory; but because of the beautiful colors in Zion National Park, there was just going to be too many colors, meaning too many times through the press, meaning it would take too long to finish all of my prints. 

Problem: a quicker way to add color. Solution: a new printing method, the jigsaw method. 

I have done this method before and it's really cool, yet it's also time consuming. The jigsaw method is just that, a jigsaw. If you're imagining a jigsaw puzzle you're on the right track. Little pieces that are all separate then are put back together. 

Here, visuals. :D 

I took my detailed drawing and created simple shapes I could cut out. Then I traced these simple shapes onto mat board and with a razor blade I cut out all those little shapes. The benefit to doing this is I can ink up all the separate shapes with a different color, piece it all back together and run it one time through the press. And then TaDa! All the color is there. 

Cutting out all those shapes were no fun but you can't beat how simple....well simple-er, it is when it's all cut out. Inking up the smallest pieces was a challenge but it's ok. Oh what we do for art! 

This was my first attempt. You would think that I would have thought about this before but ink drys on paper and mat board is made of paper so while I was inking all the pieces some of the ink was drying on the mat board. The result, too light. 

The second attempt was much better. And look at all that color! One time through the press and the color looks great. Next will be getting the key block image carved so all the details stand out so stay tuned for my next posts. 

Print failure

I forgot to post my progress; sorry guys. 

Well I was working but I wouldn't call it progress. I'm working with a coach to help me achieve my goals and stay on the right track and the other day we were talking about my larger goals. My goal is to have all 30 of my prints carved and printed by January 15, that gives me 3 1/2 months to do all that. My coach helped me narrow down my goals. To hit that goal I would have to work on almost 10 prints a month, which is almost 2-3 prints a week. It's a lofty goal and I think I'm up for the challenge. 

Then came the first night. I got my first two prints drawn out and carved. I was ready for my first color. 

Things were going smoothly but it was taking time. I was in the studio that night for 5 hours working on the first color of these two prints. There was a lot of preparations to get done at first, not every night of printing will take that long (thank goodness). From tearing paper to mixing colors, I was heading in the right direction, now I was ready to print. So with the radio cranked up, away I went. 

The first colors laid down nicely except for one thing. I will almost always draw with sharpie onto the sintra I carve on. Sometimes when I print, a ghost image of the sharpie comes throught but fades away after the first few prints. These ones didn't but that didn't bother me because I knew that there was more colors to come that the sharpie would get covered up. Not really the case. The sharpie lines stayed pretty apparent on the paper interfering with some of my carved details. 

BLAST!! All that hard work for nothing. I thought about just going along with it but I know that I'm still early in the game right now. I can cut my losses early and start over on a print that I'm happy with instead of trying to fix one that might or might not look okay when I finish. 

Anyway, this is why this is my print fail. 12 hours into my printing time and I'm back to square one. 

20/30 Zion drawings- Entry to the narrows

Another popular hike are the beautiful narrows. Yet at that time of year the water was still really cold, and if any of you really know me I don't really like the cold so needless to say I was content standing around, on the warm dry river bank, taking pictures of the more daring people embark on thier cold wet adventure. 

19/30 Zion drawing- morning guests

Artists in residence here at Zion national park get to stay at the historical Ghrotto cabin. It was centered in the park so we weren't too far away from anything, especially the the wildlife. Early in the mornings I would walk to the window to find the group of deer grazing on grass as well as a flock of wild turkeys. The turkeys were definitely less trusting then the deer, when I tried to go outside to take some pictures the turkeys would run away but the deer didn't seem to mind. There were even fox paw prints around indicating a nocturnal visitor had stopped by. 

17/30 Zion drawings- playing at the river

The Virgin River is a beautiful place and it's the reasons we have Zion national park at all. Families come from all over the world to see its creation, and sometimes add a little back. :D I sat around a little while watching kids try to skip rocks across the river. 

18/30 Zion drawings- star gazing

I grew up in the city where at night all you could see were house lights, car lights and street lights. You couldn't look up and see the stars because of all the light pollution. (That's what my astronomy teacher called it) some times you could turn off all the house lights and look up in the sky and see some of the brighter stars but nothing beats going out into the country where there are no city lights for miles and looking up at the sky! That's how it was in the park. The stars were bright and beautiful. You could clearly see the milky way stretch across the sky. And I wasn't the only one to enjoy the speticle, there was a group of night hikers there identifying the constellations.