Newly Etched

I've been working with a saline (copper) sulfate etching solution on steel plates recently - I was surprised by how well it works considering I was introduced to it as a zinc etch. You can etch steel and zinc in the same bath (at the same time!) with no adverse results to either metal. It's also more environmentally sound than traditional acids, with less fumes, and very reusable. 

Two new plates I etched with the saline solution:

"Birdcage Study"

Steel plate etching

6" x 4"

"Sisters"

Steel plate etching

6" x 4"

These two etchings were included in the annual Artworks fundraiser, Secret Artworks!

MAPC Conference 2012

Last weekend my good friend Rachel Heberling and I attended the Mid America Print Council 2012 Conference in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  There are quite a few really good write-ups on Printeresting but of course who would I be if I didn't opine?

Thursday, November 1

Of course as a working woman I was unable to leave Cincinnati until noon on Thursday. After a long drive which took us over into the next time zone and thoroughly confused us, Rachel and I passed over the Mississippi river just as the sun was setting. Every sunset in Missouri was like this and it was the most beautiful part of the trip. We could see it from our hotel room every night over the leaf-filled, half-drained pool and the many fast food billboards that surrounded us.

Introduction Two

My second Intro to Screen Printing class at Tiger Lily Press just ended (at the end of October)! It was a smaller class this time with three students, but that provided a very intimate and focused dynamic to the class. Here are some photographs from the last class: printing!

Trying out a multi-color pull.

A nice vignette of my three students - printing, looking, contemplating.

Everyone came away with quite a few prints, and experimented with color and paper type.

It happens to the best of us!

Everyone with their favorite prints!

All in all it was very successful. That is my last class for the year but I will be starting up again in March with an Intermediate Screen Printing class. It will be an open studio-style class with intermittent demos on different techniques. 

Have suggestions for techniques I should show? Leave me a comment!

Hundredfold

This weekend I spent a good 4 hours printing my page 100 times for the biannual Tiger Lily Calendar! 

(With help from my clean-hands person, of course.)

Every other year, Tiger Lily Press members turn out a calendar of original hand-printed woodcut prints.

Check back on the Tiger Lily Press blog for updates on the 2013 calendar!

New Year, New City, New Post

"Gilded (II)", 34" x 29", monoprint and silkscreen

Sorry for the holdup in posting; it's been a wild season.

You may have heard that I had a BFA Thesis show coming up; you would be right! In early December I graduated from Alfred University with my BFA. The works that went into the show can be seen on my website (under the BFA Thesis Exhibition tab).

Since then I've relocated to lovely Cincinnati, Ohio!

Obviously, without the university facilities on my side (and real-life responsibilities knocking at the door) the work that you see on FIFS might be a little different and more sporadic. I am primarily working with collage right now, although my mister and I are trying to get a small darkroom for silkscreening set up in the closet. I am also going to be trying my hand more at photography.

Roundup on cool stuff in Cinci coming soon for all my little ones back in the great Empire State!

P.S. I debated over whether or not to leave the old handle behind and move on to a new blog, but I think for now I'll keep it up. There are a lot of good memories and some good work in this blog, so I would rather see it evolve than leave it as a dusty old archival tome that no one will see.

No Words

Size variable.

54 pieces of scrap paper and daily calendar pages

with red rope printed in linocut or drawn onto them,

and some copper nails from Dave Douglas.

Consumer

Steel plate etching

15.5" x 10"

Trying a new technique with ink rolled onto the plate to create a two-tone etching.

Postkarten

Silkscreen

4" x 6"

A few of the many different colors of postcards I've been making the past day or so. Just a little project to unwind with in between the bigger things.

Summer Work Highlights

"Family Story"

Collage
8.5" x 7.25"

"Dear Heart"

Linocut
7" x 5"

"Still Waiting"

Linocut
6.5" x 7"

"Letters from Home"

Zinc Plate Etching
9" x 6"

"Homebody"

Linocut
9" x 12"

"Gilded"

Linocut
12" x 9"

"Trek"

Screenprint
10" x 22.5"

"Gold (2)"

Screenprint
11" x 10"

"Gold"
Screenprint
11" x 10"

Peeping

Finished my first screenprinted yard of fabric today! This will probably be used to make a skirt, but I may print more for funsies.

Things have been busy here. Hula hooping, swimming, exploring, and late nights. Once I find a scanner there will be much work to show. There are already lots of stories to tell.

Colic

12" x 22"

Steel plate etching diptych

We See

30" x 22"

Digital print

Sense of Self

Dimensions pending

Monoprint, Screenprint, pen

This one is a little older (it was featured in the first GAP Collective show back in November) but I think it still gets at the ideas I am interested in.

Across the World

6.75" x 12"

Steel plate etching, chine colle

Ashka

12" x 19"

Steel plate etching, monoprint

Wall Installation

Finally finished the centerpiece of my work for Artist Multiples.

8' x 4' Luon board with my A.B. Dick postcards manipulated and applied to the surface.

Also includes nails, yarn, photographs, and watercolor paint.

The subject matter surrounds the breakdown of family farms, especially the deterioration of family farms in Western New York, due to industrial farming. Through my research into the topic I found out about irrigation circles, which are used by industrial farms to create fertile farming areas in unnatural environments that would normally be inhospitable to crops. The circles on my wall reference aerial views of industrial irrigation circles. The small photos inside of the "frames" are photographs that I have taken around Western New York of small family farms, focusing on the areas where deterioration is most evident.

Everybody Does It

Four rolls of toilet paper, 9 feet of which were screenprinted on with various foods I eat.

Installed in four stalls in a public bathroom in Harder Hall.

Together

6.75" x 12"
Steel plate etching

Windows

I made these last semester but just got ahold of them again.

The first print is an open watercolor screenprint with a monoprinted background.

The second print is the ghost of the monoprint plate after I ran the first print through the press.

Both prints are 22" x 13"

Interesting Misprints