October 22, 2019

Moonlight 

Moonlight II

I have been on a bit of a mono printing tear the past few days. I have been using the gel plate for many years now and I am still learning new ways of working. For these two pieces I used a mask for the moon and the mountain in the background. Then I added the plants on top of that.

It is an interesting process and you really never know how it will turn out. My masks are made of yupo paper. I find that it makes the sturdiest and most long lasting stencils. Tyvek works for smaller masks but for the really large pieces I like yupo better.

Moonlight ghost print

This is one of the ghost prints from yesterdays printing session. I love the way this one came out. Believe it or not, These hills are in my backyard. Every day I wake up and see them.  This is just what they look like.

For paper I am using Hosho rice paper. I make so many of these prints, that if I used Rives BFK printing paper, I would go broke!

I am trying to get a lot done this week in the studio since next week I will be busy helping my husband get through his hernia surgery. I will be glad when it is over. Surgery is never fun for either person!

October 16, 2019

Sonoran Herbarium No. 51

Here it is another week and I don't have a lot of new art to show for it. I have been experimenting with some new print processes which I am not ready to share quite yet. They are quite different than my usual nature prints. Sometimes you just have to mix things up in order to get out of the artistic ruts we sometimes find ourselves in.

Also, we were supposed to go to Nogales for a day trip in two weeks, however, my husband is going to be having hernia surgery instead so we had to cancel that trip. We were both really disappointed but you have to take the date the surgeon has available. Plus he is pretty uncomfortable right now. We went down to Patagonia this past weekend for the annual craft festival but he could barely walk so it was not much fun this year.

We still have the other two day trips coming up in 2020. Going to see the sandhill cranes in January and the heard Museum up in Phoenix in March. So fingers crossed that we will still be able to go to those.

I am taking an online stencil/card making class with Linda Germain this week. It is just a weekend class and she is the queen of all things gel plate printing. She even makes her own gel plate from scratch!  I have been wanting to make stencils for cards for quite a while now and so I am looking forward to learning a new skill from her. She uses Tyvek for her stencil making. I am curious as to how that will work as opposed to my stencils made from Yupo paper.

I am also planning to sign up for a class with Donna Watson that is actually in person. She is coming here to my Paperworks group in February. That will be a real treat for me. I love her work and I am looking forward to her class!

Well, enjoy the rest of your week!

Go Bigger!

Sonoran Herbarium No. 50

This week I created Number 50 in the Sonoran Herbarium Series. I feel like it is quite an accomplishment! I am trying to get a bit more color into the work and I feel like I succeeded in this one which is mostly reds with a small bit of green for contrast.

Yesterday I took a day off from painting and went over to the JCC to help hang the show where I have three pieces. Hanging a show certainly is very hard work. The woman I was helping was up and down the ladder about a zillion times! I learned quite a bit about the foibles of hanging a show. My three pieces did not hang well on the gallery wires so I had to rewire them in order to make them lie flat against the wall as opposed to flopping over. Larger pieces don't have that problem due to the weight helping them to hang flatter. Which brings me to my biggest conundrum. My work seemed very small compared to all the other work in the show.

My work really would be better in a small works show but I have not found any of those here. Most of the art out here is huge! And I mean huge. I guess I do need to go bigger. I have 3 new wood panels that are 12" x 12". So I am going to try and see how I do with them and go from there. I don't find it easy to make large works. I would really have to rearrange my studio space in order to make bigger pieces. Of course after you go big like that where do you store it all? Let's face it, we artists are lucky to sell something once in a while. The rest takes up space in our homes and studios. My walls are filled all over the house in addition to closets being full!  So it is a dilemma.

Well, I will figure it out! Have a great weekend!