Still no printmaking...

BUT i have been doodling along happily with the pens i got for Christmas!

If i start drawing without thinking, from the bottom of my über-ich so to say,
I get surprised by how disturbed my Inner Self obviously is.

And fond of weird people.

In funny positions.

And stray cats with superpowers.

And middle-aged women with cross-species doubts.


No wonder that i have a hard time figuring out some sort of line in my work...
Happy new year!

Not really printmaking

Hi there!

Here are some illustrations i have been working on for a (still very much theoretical) children's book which i've been asked to illustrate. It really was a challenge to design from a story instead of making up the story as you design. I had a lot of struggle deciding on a form, a way of working. I tried linocut, i tried cutting stamps out of erasers, i tried drawing and aquarel-paint, but in the end it was drawing that won. I drew all the lines and then, quite like screenprinting, filled all shapes with textures. I'm not equally happy about all of them, i like the one with the red barn the most i think. The one with the fallen tree misses a bit of red but i can't think of anything red to fit in... Ideas?

 



















Have a very merry christmas!

X Ea

Saint Augu(s)tinus of Hippo, patron saint of printers

In the printmaking department we have a little niche where, I assume, once a statue of some sort stood. The first time I saw it it made me think of patron saints and how we should have one. After some research I found that there actually IS a patron saint dedicated to printers and printmakers (and also stumbled upon a discussion about the need for a patron saint dedicated to the printer as an appliance). His name is Augustine of Hippo, Augustinus de Hippo in Latin.

So after a month of vigorous carving in a sheet of MDF I had my cliché complete with faulty spelling of his name which i hope won't keep him from doing his job.

Problem was (of course, there always are problems), it was to big to put through our press... So I ended up printing it by hand with the back of a teaspoon, meticulously rubbing all 7500 square centimetres of it. Twice. 

These prints were just proofs, eventually it will be printed in gold but i have to give my back a bit of a rest before i take on that challenge.

There he is in all of his glory, all 120 centimetres of
it!

Detail of his cloak, representing the four different ways of printing: An etching
pen for intaglio, a block print roller, a lithographic roller and a squeegee for
screen-printing.

Detail of his head and wrongly spelled name.
Since Augutinus lived quite some time ago there
were no accurate descriptions of his appearance
so I borrowed a rendition of Jesus's face, and
since he is one of the good guys I figured he
wouldn't mind. Plus it sort of gives even more
protection. Nice!


That's all for today, tomorrow we have our last
schoolday for the year, i will be busy making
sketches of the chainsaw-man next week but
maybe something printed will come out as well.

Have a nice one!
Ea

 

 

 

Wish i was there!

While i was in Holland to give non-printmaking-related workshops i went to visit my friend Jiri who got a job as graphical workshop manager on my old art academy, AKV st. Joost in den Bosch. I hadn't been there for quite some time and sort of forgot how big and well-equiped our workshop was!
So here are some pictures to make you drool...

Etching / blockprint / lithography

Jiri

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a LOT of fonts!

Heaven = a closet filled with Unico inks.

Screenprinting workshop

Jiri showed me this effect, made by dissolving tuche in
distilled water applied to a lithographic stone. Pretty!

That's all, folks!