Pilgrimage book project

About 2 weeks ago we had a drawing seminar, and i was lucky to be in the group that had to ponder the world of maps and territorial movements.

I started thinking about travel, about the Camino del Santiago de Compostela, and how any life resembles a pilgrimage, moving from place to place in search of many things. I decided to make a travel-guide for a pilgrimage visiting all houses i have lived in. It's an interesting thought to me, that people have lived in the house i live in and that they have moved on to other places, like a string of beads. My home can be connected to any place, and it isn't often this is made visible.

When the drawings are finished, i will print the book in four color offset and send a copy to each of the addresses. Some houses have been demolished but the street name and number still exist so i'll send it there.

Langhuisterweg 50, sint Annaparochie, Friesland

Oorsprongweg 3, Schoorl, Noord-Holland

Pariaschool, Van Vroonhovenlaan 30, Veldhoven, Noord-Brabant

Steijnstraat 5, alkmaar, Noord-Holland

Stoofstraat 5-6, 's-Hertogenbosch, Noord-Brabant

Screenprint!

Initially thought out to be a four color print i discovered that with only the first two colors the image was at its best. So here is the Best Image!

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!

You can't start early enough...

Wednesday i was babysitting little S.

I am generally speaking not a children-person, i don't like discussing life with people with no feeling for rhetorics or logical argumentation.

But when S. asked what i did in school and i said 'making stamps' she inquired how exactly one goes about making stamps. I'm not one to miss a good opportunity to spread the joys of printmaking, and after a theoretical lecture on intaglio, block print and screen print adjusted to the level of a 5 year old we made potato stamps. It was fun!

Totally bitten by the printmaking bug i tell you!


In other news:

Tuesday i will be on my way to the Netherlands. The reason i'm going now is that i will be giving a workshop in crocheting and knitting with video- and cassette tape at the Strp festival in Eindhoven. For all of you in the neighbourhood: Come join me friday november 26th between 20.00 - 23.00 in the Lichtcafé!

May saint Augstine of Hippo have mercy on your printing press!