Saturday, October 24, 2009

Chain me to the press!

Printed some woodcuts this past Saturday on a litho press. Works well, not as much deep embossment cause there are no blankets to cushion and press the paper down into the carving of the wood. But it makes a nice impression and I was happy.

I love this Takach...



Here are some preliminary "underprints." I work in layers, monoprinting from a woodcut, varying the colors with each print...



And using stencils to block out some areas to further vary each print...



And some more "underprints." They are kinda like underpaintings: just a beginning layer to work on top of, to offer a background texture which will then be added upon by a middle ground of layers and a final printed layer.



But don't ask me what will happen next. My printing is like Iron Chef: I have an ingredient but I have no idea what will be added to the mix until it's done!

1 comment:

Melody Knight Leary said...

I love how you approach your relief prints and had to laugh at your comparison to Iron Chef. You're right though, when it comes down to it, printmaking is often about the "ingredients" and as we labor through the process it's always interesting to see where we'll end up.