Blur Born of Sugar: Faux Filter

A faux aquatint using sugar collograph. Unexpectedly, where the print is quite raised up from the sugar impression, the scanner can't "see" it  when I scan it, and it blurs. So, using a very elemental earth-based medium with a technologically inexpensive scanner, not only do I have a faux aquatint, but a faux Photoshop "blur" filter is born. Can you have a faux filter? Isn't that what filters are to start with? Fake? The idea of a digital fake filter caused by a replication of a tangible print of a fake printmaking method kind of wraps itself around in circles in my mind. Time to get out Walter Benjamin's, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction again. 

Iceplant

The other day I ran a piece of iceplant through the little press to test the limits of 3d objects. It was a little hard to crank but I think when I bolt the press to a table it can handle some soft 3d objects nicely. It squashed the iceplant well and there was a nice bright green imprint and splatter. I left the print lying around for a few days and most of the green turned a rusty brown like dried blood. 

Seaweed Continued

I loved the seaweed from Carlsbad, beautiful spirals of green and black so I took some home and did some painted monotypes of it. 
 

Seaweed monotypes

They started to look like the beginnings of a typeface to me so I took a quick search on google and lo and behold, there are many seaweed typefaces! Seaweed Fire is great.

Day Two Printing By the Shore

Once again I set up by the Philip's camper by the shore. They were kind enough to store my press inside for the night so it wouldn't get rusty, and give me a choice shady spot for a really sunny day. It was amazing to just hear the surf and feel the breeze. As printmakers we are often in enclosed shops with our large heavy equipment so this "plein air" printing was a treat.

The morning swim's haul.

LIve, dying, and dead seaweed.

Pam printing.

Phili and Pam with their prints.

More prints of the day. They ended up looking a lot like cyanotypes. We were inspired by the blue of the sea I guess!

Mobile Indelible Press @ Carlsbad Beach

Inspired by the wonderful Drive By Press, who travel around the country with an etching press in the back of a truck printing woodblock prints on tee shirts, I decided to take my little press on the road south for a few days to Carlsbad while visiting my friends that are camping here. In the regular vein of my work, I was interested to record the mark of the natural world around me while traveling through it. You can't get a better studio view than this!

My picnic table printing set up and seaweed from my morning swim.

Kelp ( I think ) ready to print.

Rolling up the kelp with some ink.

Ready to run through the press. 

The final image.  I like how it looks like some ancient viking helmet.

Sandy pulling some prints while lunch is served. Just goes to show you- you don't need a lot of space!

Paul pulling a sand print.

The sand plate. Looks good against the light too.

After printing we went back to our hotel. The heaviest item in the room helped to flatten the prints nicely.

Prints of the session.

Rich Remix

A favorite poem printed on library cards. It is amazing to me that you can still buy blank library cards.

Dedications, Adrienne Rich

Rain

Rain in the city, at last. 

Monoprint with white-out. 

Tiny Houses = Tiny Presses

It's not about tiny houses, its about tiny presses! A few years ago I downsized several things in my life, my large etching press being one of them. I've missed it though, so this summer, to fit my current smaller house, I decided to get this tiny press. 

Printing on my family's old kitchen table. My Mom's summer cucumber salad bowl acting as paper soaking tray.

I just set it up and in the spirit of the last month of summer decided to print whatever and wherever I wanted with this portable little press. Putting deadlines of other my art projects on hold for a bit and throwing caution to the wind.

To start off tonight I pulled a rune at random from the beautiful set my friend Kibi Schultz made for me and got the blank rune, (Unknowable) Although this rune is often said not to be a "true" rune, since it is without markings, I like the idea of it and it seems perfect for the start of the month and this project. 

The blank rune.

From The Viking Runes, "blank is the end, blank is the beginning…what beckons is the creative power of the unknown". Here is the inkjet monoprint of the rune. I like this method of monoprinting, that is based in photography, since you have little control over in how the image ends up. When the plate and the paper enter under the roller, there is a strange alchemy that happens. Here my image has bled, changed color, and become a mystery in itself.