A Five Day Workshop of White Line Printmaking

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Home Colors in process 2

Today I start setting up the studio at John C Campbell Folk School for a five day workshop in white line printmaking.  This is a fun class to teach because anyone can do it. All it takes is a board, simple carving tools and watercolors. Above are my small woodblocks carved with images from my yard and colored with the watercolors made from the local soils. These small prints were very satisfactory to pull away from the block. Each one is only slightly over two inches square.

Crow in process lo res

This is the other extreme which is the largest I have made….maybe seven inches by thirteen inches. The large colored areas take quite a bit of paint and lots of smoothing out of texture and tone.

Here is one that is fun to change the colors of the cloth each time I color the block.

lo res fruit bowl and board

And one I love of Australian landscape using only the colors made from the land of there.

Australia landscape

And another with the card it inspired.

 

fish card

By the end of the week we should have another nice show and tell for others to see. Here are some from classes taught there in the last few years.

last years class lo res

JCCFS white line June 2015 1 lo res

It seems there are more images than words in this blog entry. More to say next time.

A Very Large Thank You to Australia

Posted on by Sandy Webster

thank yous 2

These are some of the “thank yous” I receive from students in Australia. They always come as a surprise at the end of a workshop because the students are so clever at keeping them hidden until a formal presentation on the last day. This does not happen to me here in this country but over the last nineteen years I have quite a collection of them from down under. I can’t read them at the time they are given. It’s the “good-bye” parts that I don’t do well with. But isn’t this a lovely thing to do?

 

thank yous 3

It was a wonderful trip and so much was done in the twenty-eight days. Beginning down in Tasmania and then traveling to Melbourne. From here friends took me to Baldessin Press to work on my own and teach a workshop. Along the way we always find microbreweries and this time added a gin distillery. All before lunch!

four pillars

four pillars gin tasting

four pillars vase

home at baldessin

Leaving Baldessin Press is not easy. I managed to get a terrific lesson in photo polymer plate printing and made several dry point etching prints. I taught a two day workshop in book bindings for the addition of prints and received cooking tips from Silvi. Here is what I made for my Art Group meeting last evening using her way of cooking “pies.”

Silvi's pies

She uses filo dough (I substituted puff pastry sheets), then mixes an egg with ricotta cheese, spreads it over the dough, adds whatever vegetables are handy and bakes for about 45-60 minutes on medium high temperature. It was delicious and so simple. I especially liked the beet, mushroom, spinach and onion one. A sprinkling of Parmesan on the top before baking also added some saltiness. Very good with a deep red wine.

flat white

I will miss the best coffee ever anywhere. In the airport in Los Angeles Friday I heard a man tell another that even in Italy the coffee can’t measure up to what you get anywhere in Melbourne. I think he is correct on that. Flat whites are what I ordered every time. Here are some other things I will miss about Australia.

Eucalyptus Pink

wallabys watching

emu curious

Halls Gap big eucalypt

It was a wonderful trip and I miss it already. Now I am planning on doing it all over again next year.

 

Off on Another Adventure

Posted on by Sandy Webster

baldessin front door

I worked on this press all day today here at the Baldessin Studio. More printing of the photogravure plates I created yesterday. Here are the two larger ones.

photogravure print Anne's farm

photogravure print shearer's kitchen

Both are photos I took in Australia within the last few years. I rarely take pictures of people, just things and those wonderful Eucalyptus trees.

Before I had the one day course with Silvi Glattauer on the photogravure process of printing directly on the plate I spent two days giving a class here on book bindings that can accommodate the addition of prints. We also made pigments from the rocks we collected here on sight.

Baldessin pigments

Beautiful aren’t they? Lovely students as well. See them below grinding pigments and photographing the books made in class.

pigment grinding

silvi photoing books

We had a visiting kangaroo on the first day.

kangaroo peeking

Tomorrow I leave here for Melbourne then out to the class I am teaching in Halls Gap. I hope the weather is cooler there. Tonight it is more cold beer at a local pub in very good company and excellent conversations.

There are so many interesting people to listen to here in Australia. I collect their stories like small gifts to open later at home and share them with others. And when I do that, I am visiting them all over again, back in the pub without ever leaving home. I will write another blog entry when I can find enough time and internet.

More kangaroos for sure.

Australia – at Baldessin Press

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Etching subject

I am in Australia and spending a week here at Baldessin Press in St. Andrews north of Melbourne. So far the trip has been full of meeting old friends and meeting new students. Here in the press studio I get to do my own work for a while before teaching a two day workshop.

This morning I picked up a small branch of Eucalyptus leaves and tiny gum nuts. They were the subject for a drawing to then engrave on a polymer etching plate. First I tried to get the drawing as close to the actual subject as possible with my new graphite pencils (set of 12 in a crocodile tin). I just used the H and the HB.

Etching drawing

Once that was as good as I could get it, I laid the mylar etching plate over the drawing and channeled Rembrandt to make the marks with my etching tool to capture what I did with pencil. This was not easy.

Etched plate

Next I inked it with a sepia toned water based etching ink using a piece of mat board, tarlatin and phone book pages to wipe. Then the first test print….and another.

Etching first two prints

Seeing so much space around the leaves I decided to trim the plate by one half inch on three sides. It seemed better this way and fit easily on the Stonehenge fawn colored printmaking paper. I ended up doing four of the prints today and might do more tomorrow….or make a new drawing of something else and print that. I am surprised how well the etched line has held throughout this many prints and can just continue when I return home.

Etching four prints

Next Monday after my class I will be taking a short course in photogravure from one of the best, Silvi Glattauer who is affiliated with Baldessin Press. It is a process where I can load my photo polymer plates into my Epson printer to transfer my photos or drawings to make images for limited edition prints. This is going to be very exciting.

Now I am having a bit of red with crackers and cheese. It is pretty hot here today and a nap might be in order.

More later.