Sunday, August 05, 2007

Fresh Ink!

(cue Fred Astaire singing to Ginger Rogers..."Heaven, I'm in heaven).
I spent the entire weekend at New Ground Printshop in Nob Hill taking a class from a master printmaker, Enrique Flores from Oaxaca. It was an etching class on selective color wiping. He's developed a unique method of laying multiple colors all on one plate instead of doing multiple plates of different colors to yield a print with many colors. You can also check out more of his work at the Indigo Gallery.
The top two images are mine; I definitely have a ways to go on those, but I am happy that I could get all those colors in one pass through the etching press instead of inking up several plates with respective colors. I need to go back and re-work both plates by adding deeper lines and more aquatint. Maybe even burnish out some small areas for highlights. If you are not very familiar to printmaking techniques, you're probably saying, "Huh?" by now! And, "Who cares?" (which is what my son would say).
No matter. I care and I am thrilled to have the privilege of learning from a very talented printmaker who traveld a long way to teach his method.
Talk about COLOR...the one with all the circles was done by fellow classmate, Krista. Really awesome work; that was her first pass at laying down all the colors on her plate (wow).
The last two images are of Enrique getting all the colors down on his plate (check out that amazing image he has too) and the print that was pulled from that.
Here comes Fred Astair singing that song again..."Heaven, I'm in heaven..." !
Cue the heavy sigh of delight.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i care, too, Paula! thank you for your comment and leading me to your blog. so good to find someone who is also passionate for etching and talking about plates and burnishing and stuff. :). love the image of the first print - how the hair flies out, revealing the heart-shaped neckline on the back of the figure. and really liking the netted lines of the second print. what a great way to spend the weekend!

i do not have my own press right now but planning to settle for one of those smaller more affordable presses from dickblick. do you happen to know if they are any good? hope they are. i saw that you have one of the Takach presses! how wonderful! that is something i will have to save up to get later. *sigh*

i'm so looking forward to your new studio blog and getting to see more of your work, especially etchings...

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin