Monday, May 30, 2016

Journey into Printmaking -- Part 5, Reflections

When I finished my NSCAD program, I thought my next step would be to get into the studio and "play with paint".  I wanted, through trial and error, to learn what paint materials can do.  I wanted to train them -- and be trained by them -- to produce the results I visualize in my mind.  I dithered through the early months of 2015, detoured into renovation and set-up of the studio space over that summer, procrastinated into the early fall and finally began with a realistic acrylic painting intended purely as an exercise.  In no time, my shortcomings with acrylics ground me to a halt... and from an earlier post, you know already about the diversions I set up for myself in early 2016 to keep painting at bay.

It comes as a surprise, then, to recognize that at last, at last, I'm playing at last, albeit with printmaking instead of paint!

I think one of the reasons I've drifted into printmaking this year concerns the physicality of the tools and materials.  While I was straining away on the acrylic painting, I could feel something missing, something to do with the handling of tools, the texture of materials, the engagement of my body in the making process.  Not that painting has none of the above, but it felt like a matter of degree; at the time my body wanted to move more actively than working small-scale with paint would allow.  My muscles were (figuratively) twitching; my hands wanted more to hold than a brush; I wanted to get lost in the trance of manipulating materials.  There are other reasons why I shied away from painting -- I was afraid to fail -- but the needs of my body were answered when I stopped fighting them and picked up my carving tools.

So were the needs of my spirit.  I'm having fun.  It's Christmas morning every time I peel up a fresh print.  Although I've made mistakes and had to re-do, I can see the undeniable progress in the results. I'm going somewhere; I'm getting somewhere.

Recently, I went into the Saint John Art Centre studio and used the etching press to successfully print a 10-print series of Side-Yard Gate and a 20-print series of Tree Swallow.  I created inventory!  That can be sold!  And learned another new thing: an official print studio (whatever that means) has an identifying mark or logo that gets embossed into every print made there.  Every one of my 30 prints now bears an embossed mark that announces to the cognoscenti "this print was made at the Saint John Art Centre".  A pair of embossed "artist proofs" of each print now resides in the Centre's archive.

I'm not giving up painting.  I'm not giving up photography.  I expect I'll still make handmade books.  I'm adding printmaking to the repertoire.  And I'm no longer angsting over what kind of artist to be when I grow up.  If there's a pigeonhole to put me in, it's labelled "Multi-disciplinary"... or to put it less formally, "Eclectic".  



Journey into Printmaking -- Part 4, Tools and Materials Matter

I imagine that every maker has his/her favourite tools and materials: metal knitting needles vs. bamboo ones; ash vs. maple; oil paint vs. acrylics; silver vs. gold.  A skilled technician can work with  virtually any tool and any material, but you want the ones that make your heart sing while you work.

I have some old linocutting materials and tools that were gifted to me after a friend's mother moved on from them.  I also have some new materials and tools I picked up at NSCAD.  I have my NSCAD experiences with printmaking, few and brief as they are, but they left a small legacy from which I can draw.  I have my own needs and desires concerning how I want to work and the results I want to achieve.  The upshot is that this short printmaking journey has also involved an exploration of tools and materials, completely unexpected when I began but unexpectedly enlightening.

I started with a piece of old lino and my high quality carving tools, really intending for wood carving.  The Tree Swallow plates were all done with lino and using those tools.  At my nascent skill level, I find it tricky to carve fine details into lino, especially the small areas that will print black.  The lino tends to "fail" when too much is carved away from a small section that you want to remain.  I succeeded with the Tree Swallow plates, but felt uncomfortably close to the brink of disaster several times along the way.

Briefly at NSCAD, I was enrolled in a relief printing course that I eventually had to drop because of schedule overload.  There, I was introduced to Sintra, a plastic that comes in large sheets and whose intended purpose is for sign-making... and which carved like butter.  I tracked down the few small scraps I'd saved from the course, carved a few trial strokes and was instantly converted.  Thence began a rather fraught search to find more.  I approached a sign maker in Saint John and was given an armload of cutoffs only to discover that while they looked like the real thing, they behaved differently.  Sintra is forgiving, they were not.  I tried the internet, where the cost of shipping was about five times the (exorbitant) cost of an artist-sized piece.  I contacted the US manufacturer who directed me to a wholesaler in Moncton, but the wholesaler didn't carry Sintra despite what the manufacturer thought.  I tried another Saint John sign maker.  He disappeared doubtfully into recesses of his warehouse and eventually emerged with a partial sheet, the last of his (obsolete) stock.

Thankfully, it's a large enough amount that if I keep working small, get the drawings right the first time and take care to get the orientation right, it should last for a while.  Meanwhile, NSCAD's printmaking department directed me to another source for the next time I make the four-hour drive to Halifax.  And suggested an alternative, Marmoleum, which again led to hours spent on the internet.  Eventually I got my hands on a 13" square tile although it's only 1/16th inch thick, which doesn't give much leeway for relief carving.  I'll try it eventually; haven't had time -- or the courage -- yet.

The point is: while someone else may prefer lino and know all the special techniques for making it sing -- like heating it up before carving -- my current love affair is with Sintra because of the fine lines it accommodates.  Side-yard Gate was carved into Sintra, and I would have despaired of achieving the long straight lines in that drawing had I tried to work it in lino, at my current, limited skill level.

While we're talking about materials, let me mention the papers onto which prints are made.  Who knew there is so much to know about papers?  The paper onto which my linocut prints were made is Somerset, which has a smooth, velvety surface.  The copperplate etchings were also made on a much different Somerset paper with a harder, slightly textured surface.  Somerset is hardly the only paper on offer; there's Stonehenge and Arches, only two that I've encountered and there are many more.  How to choose?  Eventually, I imagine, a person settles on the one that works for him/her and ignores the temptations of the rest, just to keep life somewhat under control given all the possibilities.

Then there are inks.  The first draft of Tree Swallow was made using hand-me-down Speedball water-based ink.  I can only hope that their formulas have improved; the tube I have must be at least 20 years old, possibly more.  I hated the results.  Next, I ordered some soy-based ink that cleans up with water, which I used for the second draft of Tree Swallow.  Much, much more satisfying.  But the siren call of the rubber-based ink I used at NSCAD held me in its thrall...  not finding a reasonable (affordable) online source, I turned to a retired printer I know here in St. Martins who tracked down a small amount for me to use.  Ooo, the smoothness with which the ink rolled onto the plate; ooo, the rich black on the paper; but arg, the ensuing clean-up!  It begins with vegetable oil... and here I mention that there is no running water at the studio.  I had to take the slippery, inky-oily plate and tools home to finish the task.  Yikes!

In the copperplate etching course, we used an oil-based ink that had qualities similar to those of the rubber-based ink, but in the properly equipped Saint John Art Centre printing studio, the clean-up was a comparative breeze.  Health and environmental advocates endorse the water soluble inks over the oil- or rubber-based, and their concerns are legit.  But ooo, those rich blacks!  The heart has a say in the matter too.

Now we turn to tools and let me start with the baren, essentially a smooth pad with a handle above it that is slid across the paper while pressure is applied from above.  Mine is simple and inexpensive: a very fine metal screen on the bottom of the pad and a plastic handle with a good grip that arches over the top, reminiscent of a shovel handle.  The baren originates in Japanese woodblock printing and traditionally is surfaced with bamboo leaves.  They're still made and used today, and are touted as superior, so I went shopping online.  Having been assured that you-get-what-you-pay-for in bamboo barens, I bypassed the ones costing less than $10 and went looking for something of (presumed) better quality.  The next price range I found was $1,000+; nothing in the middle.  It would be fascinating to watch a skilled Japanese printer demonstrate the differences between a $10 baren and a $1,000+ one.  Needless to say, I won't be trying the experiment myself.

I already have enough to explore with my lino carving tools: a hand-me-down Speedball set with a plastic handle and disposable blades, and a Flexcut carving set with 10 (razor-sharp!) blades and a sharpening kit.  I felt so superior using the Flexcut kit, clumsily trying to follow the sharpening kit instructions, until I read a post online that said forget your fancy woodcarving tools, lino-carving dulls them too quickly, stick to the Speedball disposables for the best results.  Okay, my personal jury is still out, but next up on my shopping list will be a supply of disposable blades for the Speedball set so I can really explore the differences.

Copperplate etching requires a different kind of tool.  Bob lent us proper etching needles owned by the Saint John Art Centre so we could work on our plates between his classes.  But he had kindly allowed me to try one of his own tools, a modified dental pick... and it was so vastly superior in its mark-making that I sought and gratefully accepted the loan of it for the week.  The results were so gratifying that instead of immediately plunging into a re-working of the salt marsh print after the course ended, I plunged into a search for dental tools.  My dentist claims his clinic gets its tools re-sharpened, so I took to the internet again.  Eventually I found what I wanted, unexpectedly cheap, delivered promptly from Ontario, and got a machinist friend to grind it down into the right shape for an etching scribe.

I hope you're getting the point of all of this: in attempting to make prints, I had no idea I was embarking on a technical (and online shopping) journey as well as an artistic one.  I had no idea at the outset that the technical issues would make such a difference, not just to the artistic results but to my enjoyment of the process.  I like the feel of the Flexcut tools in my hand and the challenge of trying to keep them sharp; the buttery, easily carved Sintra; the sticky blackness of the ink on the glass plate and roller; the velvety surface of the Somerset paper; and the physicality of turning the handle of the Saint John Art Centre etching press.  Tools and materials matter, not only for the quality of the results they produce but for how they feel to the hand, and how they make you feel inside.  My advice to all makers: explore, explore, explore and find the ones that make your heart sing!


Sunday, May 29, 2016

Journey into Printmaking -- Part 3, Copperplate Etching

If you've been following along with this series of posts, you know already that I was signed up for a copperplate etching course with Robert Morouney at the Saint John Art Centre.  This was a two-day course, over consecutive weekends, so clearly introductory rather than in-depth, but it was a really great exposure to the technique... and I took careful notes... something I sometimes regret not doing more carefully at NSCAD!

Copperplate etching is as it sounds: you take a plate of copper and using a sharp tool, you etch a drawing into the surface.  When you coat the plate with ink, rolling it on exactly as for the previously described linocuts, the etched lines fill with ink.  You carefully wipe the remaining ink off the surface of the plate, so only the lines remain inked, then you run the plate through a press that transfers the drawing onto the paper.  It also embosses the shape of the plate into the paper, resulting in a subtle three-dimensional aspect to the print.

There are similarities and differences from the linocut technique.  Here, instead of making a drawing out of black shapes and white shapes, you make a line drawing... and again you face the decisions concerning what lines are essential and those that can be dispensed with.  Although it's possible to do shades of grey in etching, we didn't explore them in this course, basic as it was.  The approach we used to shades of grey concerned the kinds of mark-making used to fill various parts of the drawing.  As with the linocuts, the drawing must be reversed onto the plate in order to print in the right orientation.

We were to come to the first weekend with a drawing prepared.  Having been repeatedly told about Rembrandt's numerous self-portrait etchings, I decided to emulate him -- heck, why not?  The resulting drawing actually looks somewhat like me, and incorporates some of Bob's mark-making techniques learned in the earlier course, in the background.  A close look will reveal that even though I understand that the drawing on the plate has to be the reverse of what will appear in the print, I still don't quite have the technique down: my initials appear in the proper, right-hand corner, but the j is backwards.

Self-portrait 2016, copperplate etching, 2-3/8" x 3-3/8"



Having been exposed to the basics, we were to come to the second class with a plate prepared with a somewhat larger drawing.  I had taken a photo that I wanted to use and worked hard at it, incorporating some of my own intuitive mark-making and some of Bob's more graphic visual techniques.  However, I blew it again; enthusiasm overtook me and I scratched the drawing onto the first plate the right way around, i.e. the wrong way for printing, and had to beg for another plate to work with.  

The results underscored the earlier lesson: in printmaking, the original drawing must be right or the results won't be right.  This is a scene looking across the St. Martins salt marsh.  It shows promise, but the squiggles in the mid-ground are channels where water moves through the marsh that are incorrectly drawn to properly convey the receding distance to the flat waters of the Bay of Fundy, beyond.  And though I used Bob's mark-making techniques in the water bodies, I don't like the results; they speak with his voice, not mine.

St. Martins Salt Marsh, copperplate etching, 3-1/2" x 4-5/8"


I have to give Bob credit; one of the last things he taught us was how to prepare a copper plate for etching.  As a result, we each left the course with a prepared plate ready for making another print.  My plan is to re-do the one above, working thoughtfully on the drawing in order to get it "right", meaning consistent with the vision in my mind. 

I don't really see myself taking up copperplate etching in a serious way... so far, I prefer the positive and negative spaces of linocuts over the lines of etching... but I think I've finally got the lesson concerning orientation.  It's much like the adage to carpenters: measure twice, cut once.  I think, I hope, I'll know enough next time to stop and make sure of what I'm doing before I reach for the carving tools.




Journey into Printmaking -- Part 2

This post is about my continuing journey into printmaking and about the more-or-less spontaneous evolution of an image through various media.

Serendipitously, now that I was immersing myself in printmaking, Saint John Art Centre artist-in-residence, Robert Morouney, was about to offer a course in copperplate etching, and ahead of it, a brief course entitled Drawing into Stories.  I signed up for both, thinking the first one would likely lead naturally into the second.  The Saint John Art Centre has a dedicated printmaking studio, available for use by artists that have been trained in using the press, and this seemed like a great opportunity to cross that bridge... not to mention trying copperplate etching.

In the drawing course, Bob focussed on mark-making and on the process of resolving a many-toned image into black and white.  One of the assignments he gave was to take a photograph and draw it in black, white and a middle grey.  I settled on a photograph I'd taken near my Halifax flat when attending NSCAD.

Side-yard Gate (digital photograph)


Although I had intentionally picked an image with strong lights and darks, I found it unexpectedly easy and satisfying to pick out the things that would matter in a three-toned (hurriedly produced) drawing.

Side-yard Gate, pencil sketch

In another instance of serendipity, I found myself under pressure to produce a small painting as a donation to a fund raiser being held by the Saint John Art Centre.  Encouraged by the drawing I'd done, I decided to continue working with the same image.  The painting that follows was done after Bob's drawing course but before the copperplate etching course.  Working on this realistic rendition made me more intensely familiar with details in the image that would eventually come to matter when turning it into a print.

Side-yard Gate (oil on canvas, 5" x7")


By this time, I'd finished the Tree Swallow print, at least for the time being, and wanted to do another linocut.  I started with the sketch I'd done for Bob's course and the challenge of going from three tones to two.  I decided to experiment with the idea of using cross-hatching for the mid-tones and produced the first print.

Side-yard Gate, first draft


Here was another instance of a first draft that didn't begin to match the image in my mind.  Back to the drawing board again, to further tackle how to turn the image into black and white... and in this case again, the first draft had helped to isolate what mattered to the image and point to ways to make them stronger in the next version.  Materials came to matter in this print, but I'll save that story for another instalment in this series of blog posts.

Still using a baren to print, I produced another draft.  The hatching was gone, but the diagonal siding that is visible in the photo inspired a different solution for how to delineate space and light around the door.

Side-yard Gate, printed with a baren


I was considerably more satisfied with this version and was thinking of it as finished when, as the weeks progressed, I finally got to print it on the etching press at Saint John Art Centre after Bob's course was over.  Well!!!  What a surprise to see the press bring out carving detail that I didn't get with the baren, which enhanced the image considerably and opened up a whole new avenue of exploration: how to intentionally use the carving detail to effect in an image.

Side-yard Gate, final draft, printed on etching press




Journey into Printmaking -- Part 1

There has been another long hiatus between posts but this time, instead being pre-occupied with diversions, I've been having a swell artistic time, venturing into places that have surprised me and gathering up lessons along the way.

It began with attending life drawing sessions at the Saint John Art Centre, starting last fall, which reminded me that NSCAD indeed taught me to draw, something I still marvel at after having believed forever that I couldn't do it.  I've been working on large sheets of newsprint, which allows the drawing experience to be very physical... large gestures... and that has led to its own artistic journey that will await another post.

The next impetus was an opportunity I had to observe artist Paul Mathieson at work, painting in acrylics.  Last fall I had started work on an acrylic painting that eventually underscored what I already knew: that I have much to learn about handling the materials of painting, acrylics especially.  Because Paul works in acrylics and there are techniques in his paintings I admire, I asked for an opportunity to watch over his shoulder.  Here's a link to his website for an image that gives some examples of the gradation in shadings he achieves http://paulmathieson.com/the_wall.htm.  Check out the woman in the long coat, centre-left.

Unexpectedly, I got something extra out of that session with Paul.  He assembles his compositions out of individual figure drawings that he cuts out and arranges on paper before settling on the final image.  In other words, although the individual elements of his compositions are careful drawings, the eventual scene arises from his imagination.  My NSCAD training focussed heavily on observational drawing and painting... but I remembered an assignment I'd done in which I drew the image in my mind by working from poses in several photographs.  What if I were to go back into my mind for images again?

The other thing Paul does that stuck with me is he outlines each element of his compositions with black lines.  Unusual for a painter, but that -- along with the fact that my fellow life drawing artist, Peter Salmon, had taken to using pen and ink -- reminded me of the graphic possibilities of black and white.

I decided to try a linocut print.  I've had tree swallows nest in my backyard most summers since I've been in New Brunswick, have learned to recognize their flight and have grown attached to them in some way, so I started with a photo from the internet of a perching swallow.  I knew there would need to be features in the background to complete the composition and settled on a mackerel sky, thinking that the diagonals would work well with the diagonals already present in the bird's pose on a wire.  I found a suitable photo of a mackerel sky... and the lessons began.

The first issue in creating a black and white image, I found, is to decide what information is essential and what must be discarded.  The photos consisted of darks, lights and a whole range of mid-tones; what must stay and what must go when you're condensing the image down to the essential darks and lights, and exaggerating them to the extremes of black and white?  I worked very hard with the first image, posting it on the wall once I felt it was done to see whether it would stand up to repeated viewing over time.  After a week or so, I eventually felt satisfied.  But sometimes, one is too close to one's work, as I'll eventually explain.

The next challenge involved deciding how to transfer the image onto the linoleum block.  I was experienced enough to know that it would have to be reversed onto the block in order to print the right way around.  But different transfer techniques proceed differently.  I photographed the drawing, flipped it 180 degrees digitally, then got it copied on a laser copier and ironed it onto the lino.  The heat transfers the ink.  But the image had already been flipped and doing the transfer that way flipped it again... so now, facing me from the lino was the image I expected to see in the finished print.  The penny failed to drop and I started carving.

The process of preparing a lino block for printing involves carving out the white areas of the drawing and leaving the black areas.  I had the right tools for the job and was enthusiastically on a roll before I realized the image would be facing the "wrong" way, but heck, it would be a mirror image and what would be wrong with that, I reasoned.  When the block was finished, I got out the rest of the tools -- paper, ink and a glass plate to put it on, a roller for distributing ink onto the block, and a tool called a baren for rubbing the paper by hand against the inked block.

For me, printing presents a moment of truth that has all the excitement and anticipation of Christmas morning when I was a child.  You peel the paper back from the block and discover whether you've succeeded or....  Oh, I thought, that isn't quite what I had in mind.

Tree Swallow, the first draft


The drawing of the bird was mis-proportioned, I saw for the first time, and there was too much detail in the mackerel sky, so the bird was getting lost.  And the orientation mattered; it didn't look right to me.  What clinched it was Peter Salmon's immediate comment when I showed it to him:  "Did you print it backwards?"  Peter has been a practicing artist and art teacher for his entire adult life, so now, at 73 years old, he has an experienced eye.  Still, it staggered me that he immediately knew that the image was facing the wrong way.   Being too close to the drawing initially blinded me to its problems; and the mirror-imaging I had casually brushed off turned out to matter.

Back to the drawing board, as they say.  This time, I changed the format of the drawing, worked to correct to proportion problems with the bird and after the meticulous carving of the first version, decided to try a much more casual approach to the sky, just to see what would happen,

Tree Swallow, second draft


After the great care taken with the first draft, I had dashed this second version off and it certainly showed... but it helped me get a clear idea of where I had to go with the drawing.  Finally I understood what had to be present and what could be stripped away.  It underscored an important lesson that I won't forget: in printmaking, the initial drawing matters enormously.  

Tree Swallow, final draft