Sunday, August 29, 2010

U.H. Fall Semester 2010, Relief Printmaking

















Relief Printmaking with Duncan Dempster
"Relief" ink is on high surfaces.
"Intaglio" ink is in low surfaces.
"Stencil" ink goes thru gaps in stencil.
"Lithograph" metal with charged/uncharged areas.
6-700A.D. paper is in Europe where printing became modernized/industrialized.
"Singular Matrix"
"Multi-matrix" / color
"Expanded pratice Monoprint"
Demo - Litho ink out of can, "skim" top with knife, transfer to slab and work with knife. Miracle Jell is reducing agent if ink is "stiff," to make "loose" depending on use: large prints usually will have stiffer inks for detail. "Viscosity"
"Brayer" = roller has a resting position; use to keep roller round.
"Slab" is surface ink is rolled on, glass, plastic, etc.
"Skin" pieces of dried ink; need to be picked out of ink.
"Manage ink supply" roll out a very little at a time and freewheel roller to even the ink on surface.
Roller Press needs to be adjusted no more than one turn per side so roller won't torque. Note the Horizontal/vertical numbers which read like a fraction. 3/4
"Blanket" evens press pressure on block. Paper where image will transfer is on press platform, (may be "packing" one or two other pieces of paper under it, if more cushion needed for a desired effect). There should be a newsprint paper above the block to protect ink from getting on blanket.
Press roller adjustments should be "hand tight."
When turning project into roller, start roller going by hand so it doesn't make a hard bump that might shift work. "Bearers" are leading/trailing pieces of wood to help press roller go smoothly over inked wood.
Smooth or textured papers. Rives BFK 22x30 (3 sheets), 100% cotton archival, and Rives lightweight for class.
After printing - Keep notes on print set-up to duplicate (sharpie on block).
"Ghost print" - print on newsprint to get ink off bloc, the strip with paint thinner and rags that need to go into red can after use. Carve after dry.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

3-D Composition, Spring 2010

Bdelloid Rotifer's innards are taking shape, as in 3-D, during this home class time. Taking some license with colors in keeping with using recycled. So far bag colors come from Great Harvest, Fanatis pita bread, Alvarado St. Bakery flax bread, and Plaskolite plexiglass sheet protector. The "eyes" and stomach are Xmas tissue. Her seltzer water bottle "foot" is in place.

3-D Composition, Spring 2010

Bdelloid Rotifer innards have a design flaw: in attempts to use recycled materials as much as possible, the lateral intellarium canals cut and pasted from a bread bag, fell out of place when weights were removed. Elmer's School Paste—a bottle on hand for years—would not hold the rolled plastic pieces in place.

In the photo, the "spine" of the rotifer has gut organs layout painted in acrylic, from small containers of colors purchased from Wal-Mart, originally used to paint drawer pulls during my apartment renovation.

The roitfer is looking....spare, at this point. It has to have rolls and folds like the Pillsbury doughboy, only clear, not fleshy.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

3-D Composition, Spring 2010


Bdelloid Rotifer construction. How to do? It's a segmented, clear skinned, water-dweller. Some bdelloids have yellowish-orange organs, 2 red eyes and dark spots in their upper chest and foot regions. How to make their skin? How to support? How to make colored organs? A rotifer stand?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100128142130.htm

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/09/bdelloid_rotifers_-_80_million_years_without_sex.php

Draw a likeness on paper. Assembled used newspaper box window plexi, used for inner core support. Clear saran wrap for innards; 2L seltzer bottle for outer segments. Drag out acrylics and some brushes. Will paint adhere to clear wrap? Does it come in colors?

3-D Composition, Spring 2010


Dbdelloid Rotifers - tiny, leach-like creatures found in mud and water pools, have survived for ~80 million years without sex. Now, here's a creature worth exploring! Watching a NPR, Science Friday video of their asexual evolution—made for non-scientific consumption—got me hooked on making a mock-up of same.


Compiled a small sheaf of printable information on rotifers that leaves one admiring these females who have existed fine-thank-you-very-much for a very long time without a man around. Various posts by readers, including musing whether or not these asexuals tend propagate in water features around Catholic churches, makes learning even more enjoyable by adding to the scientific data, asking pertinent questions or just being silly.

3-D Composition, Spring 2010


Assignment 2 - "creature". Class sample: a newspaper constructed, ~2 1/2 ft. "bug." My first foray into creaturedom was an attempt at a Sinosauropteryx, that had just had a color profile done some 125 million years after life. Seems melatonin (pigment) sacks are different shapes, depending on color, and fossils of primitive feathers can shed light on original dinosaur color. Photo from NPR archives of S.....x with his/her raccoon-style tail.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123018405

I was not pleased with my wire frame bending and wadding newspaper attempts, so a new Science Friday story on developments on the evolution of bdelloid rotifers—a wonderful creature name—caught my attention.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

3-D Composition, Spring 2010

Squeaked into this class with a drop out. Very interested because of seeing wood-working projects made by the fall class: wonderfully crafted benches which were on display in the small gallery. The first assignment, dropping an egg from 12' without it cracking was a disappointment because I thought it an engineering project rather than a "functional" 3-D art object. There is certainly nothing "artsy" about the Egg Rocket, and neither versions kept the shell intact, but others were works of art: one being a fish of grey cardboard and glue embelishments.









Ceramics Spring 2010


No room for seniors this semester. Budgetary constraints are lessening classes, while student numbers are going up. Brad and Suzanne good enough to let me help as a lab assistant and will help John and Constance to make up slips and glazes and help keep that room clean.

My projects to accomplish:

• A 3" diameter cup (think wall), about 4" high for truck pens/pencils, to fit in cup holder. Make Red and white

• A water carafe, tall and narrow and simple as pictured.

• A 3 1/2" x 4"H thin-walled, green cylinder for shower tools.
• Something flat and matching for the soap dish.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Photography

Award-winning photojournaist James Pomerantz is studying for an MFA in Photography, and now you can read the books that he’s reading.

For example, Barthes’ “Rhetoric of the Image” ponders:

“if the image is in a certain manner the limit of meaning, it permits the consideration of a veritable ontology of the process of signification. How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is therebeyond?”

- excerpt from Photojojo (click on link below)