How to create a fully functioning print studio in a 1200 square foot apartment you also live in

reimagine your rooms.

(hint: you'll need twine and clothespins)

a sneak peek!

I'm getting ready for DUCF this weekend! I continue to be amazed tonight at how, nine years later, I'm still so in love with making prints.

Thanks for supporting my work and allowing me to keep on keepin' on.

Make. and make and make and make

Wow-- Its really been awhile since I made a post of substance!
I had a quick string of September shows and have been a busy bee the last few weeks! I jumped back on the screen print train and made some new work!

In addition to the Ladder Fern on Burlap I've added a Huron River Bed print, and am planning a few more for the holidays on this medium. I have a really rad commission I'm working on this month entirely in burlap, so expect to see more of these in the future!


A nice two-tone print of branches-- titled August Branches, September Branches, October Branches. These hang great alone or as a group-- either with the same color combo or in mixing it up a bit!


I have been collecting images of rocks and minerals for years, but just recently hopped on the bandwagon and started putting them to use. Here's my take on agate-- also available in a soft, butter yellow.


So, I've been doing this for around a year now and have had plenty of time to notice trends in my work. I am attracted to neutral and bright images alike, but seem to sell neutrals in much greater numbers-- I think this has a lot to do with shop customers wondering if particular colors might match their space. I plan to continue offering prints in both flavors, but am focusing a little more on neutrals for right now-- particularly delicious soft browns and lush grays.

I am also continuing to work on screen prints that work well together-- here's a group I'm loving right now. The brown tones work really well together in all three!



I should probably also talk about how I'm tending to distribute work, since you're probably reading this entry and wondering why you can't find all of these marvelous new prints on Etsy. Balancing shows with selling online, retail, and wholesale/special projects has been kind of challenging as my work has picked up speed this past year. I usually have a plan for this sort of thing (who am I kidding, for everything!) but I have had a very hard time choosing where to center my focus, and have turned into a bit of a whirling dervish as a result.

Hopefully I get my business together and narrow my scope really soon. In any event, if you'd like to pick up a print that isn't on Etsy, drop me a line and I will arrange it. I am thinking a massive holiday sale is in order this year-- hopefully my inventory will hold out and I can offer a Gift One/Get One sale, because I think that would be really fun!

I'm also happy to annouce that I will again be a vendor at this year's Detroit Urban Craft Fair, so if you're in the area you can skip the shipping and pick up some prints in person! I'm still waiting on acceptance to a couple other holiday shows-- if I'm in you'll be the first to know!

Print Preview: Forest Floor

I am in the midst of a printing break-- I've pulled around 100 woodcut prints off 5 plates over the course of last night and this afternoon. My whole right arm is very upset about the repetitive brayer and spoon action, and my neck is stuck in a downward position.

Here's a new guy from the bunch:

I think this is an autumn print. My sketch started with a single leaf, the oak in the center. Then I drew a few more, added an acorn, and before I knew it, I had the perfect ground cover on a brisk October day.


So I printed it up on this cardstock that's a cross between butternut squash and mustard yellow. And, to see what would happen, printed it on some kraft brown, white, and green too. They all look really different. I plan on attempting to hand color the white in a few days once my ink is dry. I don't usually care for this look, but it might just work with this one.

This print will be up for grabs this weekend at the Jamboree at Riverside Park, and on Etsy shortly. A couple of simple screen print editions were in the schedule for tonight-- hopefully my neck straightens out by then!

The Pendulum Swings!

I sometimes wonder if I have what it takes to make work full-time, because the process of creating is a bit tricky for me. I need everything to feel right-- I can't come home and dive in if I've had a bad day, or I'm thinking about my bills. My surroundings need to be organized and peaceful. And then, once everything is in place for the show, I have to pull back the curtain and not recite, but invent my lines.

And then I have to trust whatever story those lines tell-- sometimes they are pulled more toward one type of subject matter, or medium, or color palette. Sometimes I don't feel like I have a whole lot to do with what direction I'm headed in-- there's an intuition at work that just takes me there.

Such is the case with the recent prints. I've spent months working almost exclusively on screen prints, only reverting back to woodcuts when I need to pull a handful off the same plates I've been using since last winter. I've reopened and touched up a few new pieces, but haven't made anything new in awhile. Ok, that's not true, I did cut up a plate a few months ago and I hated it. I had been thinking about it for forever, and it seemed just fine when I carved it, and then I pulled the print and I hated it. That doesn't happen very often these days. So I told myself to put it 'behind the couch' as an art teacher once told me and come back to it later. Later turned into the better part of two seasons.

And then, like a spark, it comes back. Its hard to explain how this happens when you work in two mediums exclusively. I did come close to an explanation by way of a blog post by amazingly reflective an articulate fellow Etsy seller Allison Sattinger of Sunny Rising. If you compared art to real-world jobs (ha!) the two types of prints I make would be like working in related jobs in the same field-- say chemistry and physics. Allison's working life, in silversmithing and leather tooling, is more like bouncing between ballet and construction.

Here's an excerpt from her blog that sums up this duality in ways of making perfectly:

I cannot breathe in enough of the scent of leather

nor can I seem to tool enough....

The pendulum which had swung to silver for so many weeks has swung to leather

one field lays fallow while another is seeded and harvested -

that's the way to keep the earth full of nutrients

and the mind blossoming with ideas and activity.

I can relate entirely. So, my pendulum appears to be swinging back toward woodcut prints, which is too bad because I just bought a $40 gallon jug of screen print ink. Today I made a woodcut from start to finish, and I thought I'd give you a little 'making tour'

So first I draw the image on the plate. The plate is the same size as the paper the print will go on, so I decide on a border size first. Then I draw the image in pencil, and again in black sharpie. The black sharpie is great for this because you get lines with about the same weight as your finished product, not too fine in the detail department. Then I cut away all of my line work with a Dremel tool with small sanding attachment. This is where I depart from most relief printers, who use hand tools. The Dremel cuts approximately 99% of the time away from this process-- with the added bonus of not swearing under my breath or cutting my hands. The vibrating does require occasional breaks because your hand will go numb.



All carved away-- the Dremel cuts curves with ease, this would be nearly impossible with hand tools.


Next I make a frame from paper and tape with a hinge on one side. After I ink up the plate I can swing this frame over the print to prevent ink around the edges from touching the paper.




Then I squeeze some ink out of the tube, loosen it up with a palette knife, roll it out with a brayer, and ink up the plate. At this point I can see where I'm going to want to go back in with the Dremel later and touch up some leaves.



Then I put a piece of paper on top, push the ink into the paper with a wooden spoon and voila! Finished product. This is called Bracken Fern :)




Here's a close-up of the wet ink. I use oil-based inks because I think the texture is so must finer and smoother after the drying process is complete. This print will take around 2 days to dry completely, at which time the ink will feel and look almost like suede.

I've been feeling the need to switch my subject matter from one process to the other-- so in addition to seeing woodcut prints with ferns, leaves, stones and other subjects from my screen prints, I am starting to envision screen prints with the nests and rock formations and roots. Hopefully new inspiration with intervene at some point as well.

If you're looking for a more in-depth explanation of how woodcut prints work, I recently posted a PowerPoint tutorial to my web site that you can download or view online. Maybe your pendulum will swing toward woodcut prints too!

almost ready...

Here are all of the finished screen prints in my possession-- right around 200. I have around 100 more that can be stretched-- my plan is to get to those throughout the week as things sell. Living 10 minutes form the venue is fantastic.

Today we built three walls for all of my work to hang on-- one for small screens, one for small woodcuts, and one for large work from both. I, per my usual routine, came in with a sketch that was 100% structurally unsound. Luckily, my boyfriend's dad Dave is an amazing craftsman with a fully functioning wood shop (you know that big yellow saw they have at Home Depot-- he actually owns one of those) and he turned my vision into a reality in under 8 hours and charged me nothing. I threw a layer of deep brown on everything and its ready to assemble at set-up tomorrow.

I still have lots to do before I'm allowed anywhere near a bed-- so that's it for tonight! I will be posting on Twitter this week (I even know how to post photos now-- fancy!) so you should stop in there. I just added a Twitter feed to the side bar off to your right, so you can follow along.

Good night!

Print Preview: AA Art Fair

I've been cranking out the prints over the last few weeks-- here's a handful of the new ones!

Mesas
This print has been living in my mind's eye for months-- it was very cathartic to get it out on canvas. 5 screens, one in a lovely sky blue, four oranges ranging from creamsicle to rust.

Lake Leaves
A simple plant silhouette from a sketch made on Hamlin Lake. I made a huge edition of this one, it will be available in the green on green (as shown above) green on blue, brown on green, brown on blue, brown on orange and brown on natural canvas. I wish I had thought to pull out the burlap for this one-- maybe next time!

Mineral Deposit
Based on a painting made for my little sister and her husband to celebrate their wedding. Four screens in rich, warm colors-- based loosely on the soil content diagrams.

Sleeping Bear Dunes
It was only a matter of time before the crisp aqua waters of Lake Michigan started showing up in my work. Sky blue sits on top of aqua, on top of sloping drifts of sand in a buttery yellow taupe.

I didn't get very accurate colors for the photos due to the hazy, diffused light coming in our windows today-- a nasty side-effect of a humid Michigan summer day. I have another 6 or 7 new 8x8" prints pulled as well, and am noticing a huge gravitation toward warm colors in my work right now. I asked my friend Adam (a Florida native) once, what he thought of living in a four-season climate and he told me that its like having four pockets to carry your memories in. Now that I've been doing this for a year I can start to see the same principle apply to my work.

Tonight I pull some larger screen prints and get crackin' on the mountain of woodcuts that need to be made.

Print Preview: Spring Work

Well, its Tuesday-- and I barely made it before the sun went down, but I have lots of new work to share! I looked back on my first Process Post where I shared my sketches and am amazed by how different most of the finished results are. Sometimes I come across a scrap of inspiration and it just seems like far too strong an image to abandon for a thumbnail I've committed to but have grown less and less crazy about. After all, there's no sense in printing at all unless you're so excited you can barely wait to pull away the screen-- and that's how these came to be for me. This group, along with a few leftovers, will be at the next two shows. At that point (hopefully sooner!) I'll have to print up another big batch.

I still plan on making the stones/sequoia diptych from my sketches, and the landscape, but for now it looks like those will come a bit later on this spring.

So here they are, with a little bit on how I arrived at them.

Title: Hiawatha Birches
I love visiting the Upper Peninsula-- its like a whole different world up there. My favorite stretch is just after the Mackinaw Bridge on Highway 2, right along the coast between St. Ignace and Little Bay de Noc. Filled with old tourist traps, smoked fish and pastie shops and tiny painted cabins dotting the road, its wear-- the faded, peeling paint and rusty signs set against the trees, have always seemed magical to me. The best place in the whole state to visit birch trees is right up there in Hiawatha National Forest. This print is a little nod in that direction. I set the trees against various shades of smooth dolphin gray for a nice, neutral pop.

Title: Jade Stalks
We have a little jade plant that's doing really well, so here's my homage to her. I love the juicy leaves on jade that branch off on equal steps along the stem, and also that they grow straight up in the air. There's also an orange/green version of this print. I offset the registration on the leaves and background and don't have an opinion yet on how they turned out-- I might fill in that color with another, more kelly green at a later date.

Title: Vintage Cattails / Vintage Wheat
I had planned on a silhouette of wheat against orange in the original sketches, and taking cues from a retro Riverwalk sign near Michigan's capital city, Lansing, combined two ideas into one to come up with this set. The two tone color combination floats you back to the 70's with a plant silhouette framing one side. The subjects lended themselves very easily to blue and orange tones, and using those complementary colors also means that they look great as a pair.

Title: Log Slice
In my sketches I had a pile of log slices in various sizes, but I really liked the details I had a chance to depict in printing up just one. I got to make some nice rough bark, circles in varying thicknesses, and in troubleshooting a huge dilemma where my contact paper kept leaping from my screen, added the cracks which ended up really making the composition sing.

Title: Fleming Creek
This one is straight from my sketches-- my Fleming Creek woodcut print has been really successful and I wanted to translate the same image via screen print. The blue is a touch more teal in reality, and sets against the dreamsicle orange quite nicely. Reminds me of racing against daylight on the river and of that magical 5 o'clock hour in the summer where the light is stunning.

Title: Resurrection Fern

This is the second print I've named after an Iron and Wine song-- I couldn't help myself. I made a fern print the last time around and wanted to make another that looks a little more toward the actual plant. I did a little fern research and fell fast for the long broad leaves of the resurrection fern. This one will be available is 9x9" glass frames for the same price as regular screen prints. I had to sneak up on this one at a weird angle under lamplight to get an accurate representation of its color and keep glare off the glass, so that's why the photo is a bit wonky.

I have around 150 of these all together, and probably won't list them on Etsy until the first couple of shows are over. (early May) If you're absolutely over the moon for one I'll make a custom listing and get it out to ya in case they sell out! I will also have a special edition screen print offering in May in conjunction with my participation in IndieFixx's Feed Your Soul project.

I would really appreciate any feedback you have on these as I frame them up for shows. Trying to figure out which ones will sell and which ones won't is not a strong suit of mine-- so your comments help me do a little projection!

Now onto woodcuts!

Print Preview: Log Slices

I'm back in the saddle and I've been thinking about the best way to make this log print from my sketch book all day-- it originally started as a pile of logs, but I just couldn't wrap my mind around how that might be conducive to the method I use. So I decided to focus on one little log slice and I'm loving how it turned out-- I think turning this idea of many logs into one was really smart.



This is the first screen in the print. I'll go in with a orangier brown next and screen it on top of the center (which will pull the tree rings back a little and let the bark come forward and then I may or may not put a barely there blue around the edges. Once its wrapped around the frame the log will take up most of the composition all but a few tiny corners around the edge exposed.

I'm also going to intentionally off-set register the other screens this time, so I'm really excited to see how it all turns out. More to come!

Print Preview: Terrariums

I finally kicked the holiday hangover and got back to normal with a little printing action this weekend. I have been stopping in at Amy Merrick's charming blog for awhile, and was amazed when she shared her lovely dresser of terrariums in all of their Victorian-esque glory. For her well-written instructions, visit this how-to she put together on Domino's website-- which is where my terrarium photo a few posts back comes from.

Anyway, Chris treated me to a terrarium day of awesome for my birthday. We drove around town collecting moss, potting soil, gravel, old glass containers and a couple of houseplants, and I spent the rest of the day assembling them into my first terrarium village. I sketched out a fun little print inspired by this process a few weeks ago, but just got around to printing and listing today.

My favorite part of this whole process, like making actual terrariums, was deciding what to 'plant' into my containers. In the end I went with a tropical plant, a little cypress tree, two stalks of jade, and some ivy. You can find this print up on the Etsy shop.

I also printed a small companion edition of the jade in the clamp jar on leftover bits of canvas. I will not be stretching these, but custom matting and framing them instead. In fact, I may even mat and frame some of the larger ones-- I think a heavy wood border will give this print some nice weight. Anyway, here's a sample of what I intend to do with the small ones:


This is popped into a 4x6 frame, I think they'll look a little better matted into 5x7". I will be on the hunt for those in thrift shops tomorrow, and they will be up on Etsy soon as well. I'm getting braver about shipping glass* so I will probably be offering more framed prints on Etsy in the future.

Lastly, here are the prints from my Icy Tundra Trade with Shannon of Loaded Hips.


I received so many compliments on this pair while over the holidays. They hang in our bathroom right between the doorway and a set of shelves.





* My childhood friend Vicky purchased a framed print over the holidays and it got stuck in the package chute at the post office in such a way that the box was taking a direct hit anytime you tried to open the drop box door. I couldn't get it out and couldn't get it to drop down. I ended up leaving a note on the drop box begging for USPS patrons not to bust it open on a Priority Mail address sticker. After all of that it came to her in perfect condition!

Print Preview (Shadow Art Fair Edition)

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I had lots of wonderful traditional food and am fueled up and ready to print like mad over the next two days.

Here is my very first edition of Print Preview! These are two recent prints I will be selling at the Shadow Art Fair next weekend. The top is based on Hazelnuts-- I am drawn toward botanical images with winter leanings this year. Michigan is a gray haze of short days and long nights right now, but you can catch glimpses of beauty in the plant skeletons that remain and in seasonal cuisine. I'm sure hazelnuts are tasty all year round, but they'll always be a Christmastime food to me.




The bottom is a reprint. I have touched on this design (Appalachia) several times and wanted to again make it in green on green. The design is slightly altered this time-- I think it looks a bit more like paperclips. Mmmm... I love brown and green together. I visited the Blue Ridge Mountains with some friends many springs ago, and fell in love with the hills of greenery.