Results from Encaustic Printing Class

I took another printing class today at the Schack Art Center in Everett.  The instructor this time was Deborah Kapoor, who regularly teaches at Bellevue College.  It was a great class and I had a great time experimenting with encaustics and mark making on paper.  I have only done a very little work with encaustics and what little experience I have was with cold wax encaustic.  Working with hot wax today was a totally new thing for me and lots of fun.

I am not sure how I feel about any of the pieces I did today.  The one thing I am sure of is that it was fun!  I expect I will be trying encaustics with print making again soon.

Lino Block Printing Class

I took a wonderfully fun and surprisingly productive lino print class over the weekend at the Schack Art Center in Everett.  I have taken several printing classes there since the first of the year and I've learned a lot.

This plate is the original plate I carved and the one I did all the black ink only prints with.

The teacher for this two day class was Betsy Best-Spadaro.  I have taken one other class from Betsy.  You can find my blog post on that class here and here.  I always learn so much and have a great, fun time in her classes.

This is the plate that I carved away everything except where I wanted to print red.  

This is the design I came up with.  As my friend pointed out, it came from an old sweater I wear all the time, right down to the checker board detail.  And I hadn't noticed.....oh, dear.

elephant only plate, printed in gray

Of course, once I got into the design it became apparent that I was going to have to carve three blocks to get the print I wanted.  (In color, that is.)  Betsy was gentle when she confirmed that, yes, I had to cut away my elephant.  It hurt me but I did it.

Here is the red ink only plate after carving away every thing that was not to be reel

 I printed a few times using only black ink, before I reduced (cut away) the plate.  I do like it in just black and white.

Black prints drying on the drying rack.

A print all in black on the drying rack

 Here is the print in black and white.

And here it is printed in gray, red and black.

All the prints drying on my dining room table.

 I absolutely LOVED this class.  I'm taking another two day class from Betsy next month.  Stay tuned....

Wood Block Printing Class---Day 2

my block with the second color of ink applied

This is a continuation of my reduction wood block printing class that I took at the Schack Art Center in Everett this past weekend.  If you missed the first post you can find it here.

Betsy Best-Spadano was the instructor.  She was wonderful!

Here's my block just about to be run through the engraving press.

This is what the block looked like when it was removed from the printing press....

...and here is what the print looked like as I peeled it off the block.  Two out of four colors were now printed.

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My block began to look used, as each successive color was printed.  I love how it looks as it gets inked and then reduced some more.

And here are the prints with all four colors printed.  I am very happy with these.  I wish that it would have been possible to have done a larger run, but with 8 other people needing to ink and print their blocks, a small run was all that was possible.  I can't wait to do more printing!  I had a wonderful weekend.  Just what I wanted for Mother's Day!

Our instructor, Betsy Best-Spadano, did her own blog post about the class.  If you are interested, you can read it here.

Saturday Morning

Busy week.  It's always busy this time of year as this is when I do the scheduling of the volunteers for the Edmonds Arts Festival.  Not even two months until we are, once again, in full Festival mode.  This is rather a poignant season for me as it's my last year on the board.  I will miss it.

I completed my map for the ArtHouse Co-op map project.  The idea was to create a map, a map of anything you wanted, that would fold up into a 4 by 6 inch packet and was mailable in a standard envelope.  I chose to do a map of places I've been and places I plan to visit.  I had quite a lot of fun doing this as it took me back to my university days (all these many decades ago!) when I was a geography student, studying cartography.  This was just as computer mapping was becoming the way of all mapping, but we still had a cartographic lab and we all  had to make maps by hand.  It was something I was not particularly good at, although I did enjoy it.

I also had fun this week doing a run of relief prints.  I got to make a huge mess!

Between gully-washers of cold, grim rain, spring is exploding around me.  The cherry tree in front of my house is reaching out its arms toward the flowering quince.  The aroma is delicate and fresh and screams "spring!"

I can't get enough of tulips and daffodils and I'm forever buying a bunch (or three) at the local market and coming home and plunking them in whatever receptacle is at hand.  I have jugs and vases all over the house.

I couldn't, no, I could NOT, cut any of the flowers growing on my back deck.  That would be a sin!  I stand at the kitchen window and just gape at all the color.  Such a lovely sight after a long, cold, wet winter.

 I am so ready for spring!