New Honeycomb Print

Used the same negative-print method over the weekend with this honeycomb print. I laid the yellow down first and then cut out and applied approximately 1 million little honeycombs before screening on the brown. I laid it out much more haphazardly than usual, but I think that the composition came out a-okay anyway.

Will be stretching around 40 screens tonight and attaching tags to all of them and taking inventory. Then I'll be ready to go for the Movement show, and thinking about the next one-- I have TWO weekends to get around for it-- a frightening thought! I'll be reevaluating after this coming show in order to decide whether or not to take a little time off the day job to get ready for the next one.

Sneak Peeks

I've been stalling on buying more business cards. I get lots of compliments on my old ones, and they match my shop "look," but I was never really sold on them. My plan, should time ever permit, is to screen print designs on card stock and then print out info a clear mailing labels to put on top. A bit like moo cards, but with a handmade spin. I think I really just wanted my cards to feel unique from one to the next. I also wanted type to play more of a starring role than a supporting one-- and that's not really possible in anything you can order.

Then I commited to selling work in Handmade Detroit's multi-vendor shop at Movement, (formerly the Detroit Electronic Music Festival) and realized that if I wanted to truly take advantage of marketing to 80,000 people then I'd need lots of new business cards in a hurry. Like 10 days hurry. So I bought some textured cardstock and went for a skinny horizontal format on my inkjet at home.

I like how they turned out-- I'm still itching to print my own though! The script/western treatment in my shop name is on its way to becoming my new m.o. I think.




My work graced the pages of Design Sponge this week thanks to Chicago designer Amy Allison's home. Amy picked up some work from me last year-- I'm so happy to see it tucked away in her bathroom! She makes really beautiful screen printed textiles and pretty white ceramic work with an etched feel.

Can you spot it?

My piece for IndieFixx's Free Art Project will be up sometime between next week and the end of the month. Here's a little glimpse at the work-in-progress.

You'll be able to download and print the finished piece once its up on the site!

A creative activities update!

I've been out and about this past week-- the options for passing time are much more plentiful now that the warm weather has returned! I have managed to sneak in a little work and have also developed a really fun eye twitch in response to the work yet to be done!

As promised, here's the super exciting theme for the new flyer at the store:

We wanted something really fresh because green is shooting out of the ground like crazy, so we went with sprouting. My coworker Adam created the sprout from foam board and wire, and then applied multiple layers of felt on top before nestling it in this little shadow box behind plexi-glass. Several components of the actual sign were cut from paper that was applied to the chalkboard-- a totally new way of working for us that we'll definitely be coming back to. The rest of the store is filled with downed branches that we covered in kraft paper tape and little paper leaves.

In my own work, I'm happy to announce that I have a new favorite material-- his name is Mr. Burlap.

(click for texture bliss!)

I purchased this organic hemp burlap a few months ago, but just got around to using it this weekend. I love the effect when a somewhat modern image is screened on top-- the contrast is heavenly.

The only problem with Mr. Burlap is that he's really thirsty. These prints require at least 4 times the amount of ink required to screen a regular print-- the dried burlap weave is like a sponge! I haven't decided yet whether or not to charge more for these prints-- either way, I'm in love.

This reverse technique (where the negative space is screened in) is going to play prominently in the prints I pull in the next few weeks I think-- I'm hoping it will be a fun way to breathe some new life into successful images. At the same time as the burlap prints were created I pulled another Ladder Fern edition where the brown negative space is screened on top of a variegated panel of greens.

For this effect, I cut the screen opening to just under the size of my piece of canvas, and then dollop on a few shades of green in random spots and pull the ink across the whole panel. Then I screen the negative space on top in brown. I already used this method last winter with the Huron River Bed series, which I'll be bringing back in addition to these Ladder Fern prints and some Honeycomb style prints also using this method.

That's on my to-do list between now and the next show, in addition to (as always) pulling lots and lots and lots of woodcut prints. I have my work cut out for me!

Tweaking the Plan

I had a fantastic time at my student teaching alma mater, Ann Arbor Learning Community this past Saturday at their annual Spring Fling Craft Fair. And I've discovered that my hunch after Handmade Detroit's Craft Revival continues to hold true. Rather than small individual print purchases making up the bulk of my sales, like holiday shows where folks are either looking for gifts or making very small personal purchases, most of my income from these past two shows has been the result of several large purchases. A lot of my customers have been looking to buy multiple prints that work together. I never really saw this as coming.

So I'm going back to the drawing board on my plan for this body of work a bit. I still have plenty of these prints to get me through the next show, but will be looking for additional work to coordinate more. I will be bringing a few images out of retirement (with changes) that will work really well to this end, but because I don't find that terribly exciting, I'll be doing some sketching this week to develop pieces that work really well with what I have in terms of color and composition. Being flexible is the name of the game-- and I can't say I'm not excited (and a little taken aback) when someone hands nine screen prints to me and says I'll take all of these! ( If you're reading this Willow, thank you so much! )

I have four more weekends before the Mt. Clemens Art Fair-- my very first multiple day show. (They haven't released a vendor list yet-- but if you're coming, please drop me a line!) I have no idea what to expect for this show, and I think its the first year they're offering a space for 'alternative artists' like myself, so there's plenty of uncharted waters. I've been doing an ok job rolling with the punches with these last two shows, so I guess I'll just make what I can, bring it, and see what happens. If I've learned anything so far its that I have no idea what will happen.

Craft Revival Recap

Craft Revival was a blast!

I had the chance to chat with lots of other vendors-- I carpooled with Rifferaff, sold alongside fellow Ypsilanti-ite Sparklepants Industries, met The Proper Peach and traded with Phantom Limb. Everyone was super nice.

Here's a few photos:

A view of my table in the morning-- this is the first time I
used lights and I really liked them!

Vendors prepping their displays

Woodland Creatures made by The Proper Peach

A view from behind the booth

I met all sorts of wonderful art lovers, and learned that seasons really do dictate what people buy. Purchases made last winter seemed to have more of a 'gift' theme-- framed prints, single screenprints, etc. Yesterday was all about strategic home decorating. I sold a lot of unframed woodcut prints and a lot of framed prints/screen prints in multiple combinations. I had an absolute blast helping people pick out pieces that worked together for them to put up in new apartments and redecorated homes. I feel really honored to be a part of helping people start a collection of original art.

In any event, I learned a lot. I've relisted available prints on Etsy and will add more throughout the week while I attend to a few custom orders and put the finishing touches on my piece for The Free Art Project. (More on that, including a sneak peek as we lead up to its release on May 1st.)

Fly!

Its time to push these newborn prints out of the nest and see how they fly.

See you tomorrow @ Craft Revival!
(or Monday on Etsy when I start listing the new work!)

Ahead of Schedule at the Factory

I might actually pull this one off feeling organized.

I have screen prints to stretch, two clamp lights to finish spray painting (outside!) and inventory to inventorialize(?) in addition to making a few signs and some other odds and ends. I won't have to worry about packing the car with my table furniture since its still in the back of my wagon from the last show.

What's helped so much in this rush to the show madness has been the decision to stop using reclaimed frames. Most of the frames I own (and love the most) are vintage, and up until this point, I've used them almost exclusively. There's a certain level of fun in finding them-- driving to the one-day-a-week Kiwanis sale in Ann Arbor at 9am on a Saturday without brushing my hair, becoming a regular client on Resale Row, stumbling on other lovely treasures and so on. If I still practiced this method I'm sure I'd have found the solid wood mid-century coffee table of my dreams by now. And an entire Pyrex set. It was a fun, but time-intensive search. Then once I got the frames-- oh man. The things people do to wedge something in a frame- the nails and staples. I have a whole pile I could not resurrect once taken apart from the precarious situation I found them in. At the end of the day, the full time job was getting in the way of all of the time I wanted to spend thrifting, and I was starting to get frustrated at my lack of carpentry skills and time.

So when I stumbled on a gold mine of beautiful, modern, solid wood frames from a certain Swedish home furnishings empire at a huge discount, I spent a week thinking about it. At the end of the day the vintage frames were so.much.work. to find and put together, and I caved. I threw down a big chunk of change and took home enough frames to fill the closet in our office.

These new frames will make their debut on Saturday, and the online shop will soon be able to accommodate custom framing with any order. They look much more polished, but lack some of the character of a frame that's been beaten within an inch of its life and used to house a photograph of a duck in a party hat (true story). Sometimes I left the old art in the frame, just so anyone who takes it apart some day gets a sense of the life these four pieces of wood have lived. This sense of polish seems be true for my body of work this time around-- many of the woodcut images are the same, but on new, sturdier paper. The editions are more consistent, even, and neat. I miss the wonky frames, random fingerprints, and dinged corners a little. They contained a narrative all their own.

On the other hand, I learned printmaking in a purist environment. I was taught to craft my image carefully, ink neatly, and to print with clean fingers. I didn't appreciate learning the trade this way until I took a kind of 'anything goes' course, where the rules I learned about precision were thrown out the window. I admire amazing printmakers (like the very talented Annie Bissett, for example) who create images that pull this off so well, with so much patience. Its such a process-laden job to make a print that extra patience can sometimes be hard to come by. The small part of me that's a touch Type A is satisfied to see a marked improvement in craftsmanship in my own work... all it took was 8 years of practice.

Craft Revival Coupon!

I wanted to offer blog readers who might find themselves at Craft Revival this Saturday a little something extra, and here it is!

Print this little puppy out and you can take home a woodcut print on the house when you purchase any screen or framed print. Its like putting a new five dollar bill in your hand only handmade and prettier!

If you're like me and almost always out of printer ink, you can hand draw the coupon and present it to me on Saturday as well. I will honor either version, though I will treasure the hand drawn one a teeny bit more. Extra points if you use crayon.

I'm trucking along with everything-- tonight (I know its already 1am, shhhh) I'm screening colors on woodblock prints. Then tomorrow I'll finish that and start the endless finger numbing work of stretching screen prints and putting woodcut prints into those annoying (but necessary) plastic sleeves. I also plan on running approximately 3,000 errands.

Craft Revival Lineup

Several days ago, (I'm a scoch behind on my posting duties)
Handmade Detroit announced the official lineup for Craft Revival!
Pay the site a visit and you can start planning your purchases!

Here are a few other show dates on ye' old spring calendar:

May 2: Spring Fling Arts and Crafts Show, Ann Arbor Learning Community
June 5-7: Mt. Clemens Art Fair (Alternative Craft Tent)
June 13: County Fair, Ann Arbor

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!

Show Announcement!

Yesterday I was chosen to be one of thirty vendors at Handmade Detroit's Craft Revival!

Details: Saturday April 18
10-5
@ the Magic Stick
(4120 Woodward Ave. Detroit)

I got somewhat addicted to shows last fall, so I'm really excited to get back to them after a three month hiatus. This show should be interesting because the venue is a little on the darker side and we're encouraged to light our booths up a bit which means that I finally have a reason to coerce Chris into building a log lamp!

So I have six weeks, and its time to get busy! Luckily, I found a really simple solution to my fern measurement snafu yesterday and a major time and money saver in the framing department. Everything should run a little more smoothly and efficiently this time around. My first step today will be to make a nice big calendar of the next month and a half. I'm hoping to make around 200 screen prints and 400 woodcut prints, so planning is essential.

measure once, cut twice

Already a snafu! My coworkers in the Art Dept. will tell you that this is how I start all major projects-- spilled paint, a wrong cut, painting an entire chalkboard upside down-- the list goes on and on and on.

I carelessly measured the fabric for this first edition, and now I'm discovering that I didn't make the cuts large enough to wrap around the frame. I'm off by TWO inches on one side! How I didn't notice this is beyond me.

On the upside, the prints themselves turned out quite nice-- in trying to turn lemons into lemonade I framed up one and turned another into a quick pencil pouch and they look lovely either way. Even if I don't use them I'm only out $12 in fabric, a little ink, and around 3 hours of my time.

I'm struggling this time with how many supplies to acquire at a time. This fall I bought supplies in many waves because I was never quite that confident that I would sell enough to make the cost back. This is especially true with fabric-- I don't know how many collective hours of my life I spent in the cutting line these last few months. Even last week I only bought three yards, half of which I already used on this 'oops' edition. Tonight I've decided that my new motto is GO BIG OR GO HOME. I'm buying 6 yards next time because I will obviously use them. I think making a big supplies investment will encourage me to get going!

Since I have nothing to show for my evening I'll leave you with this Handmade Portrait on Etsy that melted my heart. Etsy puts out these little documentaries featuring their artists from time to time, and this one might just be my favorite, though I absolutely love what SunnyRising has to say about the nature of sharing processes with others in her portrait, and also when WoodMouse discusses the benefits to open-ended toys in hers.

This one is particularly sweet though-- maybe because I find it really easy to imagine my third chapter years this way-- though I'd probably have to find a way to get around the raising my own chickens part. I had an incident on my uncle's farm involving one very nasty chicken at the impressionable age of 5 and I have never been able to get past it, but that's another story for another day.

Today's story is about Robin and Kathy Tucker of Wood Mosaics.

Process Post: Idea Time!

Writing out my process for pulling ideas together has been difficult, but really helpful. This stage is definitely the most organized I'll ever be in working through a group of prints.

So I feel like I've got a decent handle on what comes next. Perhaps the most important lesson I took from printing in my undergrad was not to try to say too much with my work. Coincidentally, I didn't learn this message until after I finished the degree. You should see my final pieces about women authors, yikes! I actually sewed a real spoon onto a canvas and modge podged rocks into the pocket of a handmade apron for a piece about Virginia Woolfe. It was bad.

These days, I try not to fill work with grand, sweeping meanings but with simple truths. Sometimes I try to think of it like a poem, where writing a beautiful line about the unnoticed detail carries more weight than the tired cliche. Anyway, I might need to pull in the reigns a bit more on this group-- there's certainly a lot going on in it.

Oh, I also want to say this about the idea stage: I am a firm proponent of idea freedom! Many artists try to bottle up their ideas into tight little copyright bottles as if they were handed to them by God himself. The idea that artists have these original visual epiphanies is a myth. Everything builds on what's come before. With that in mind, I think pulling from others is not only ok, but kind of necessary. There is, however, a big difference between a copy and an original-- it should be taken and then made your own-- made better or different or put together with something new and interesting.

I'm going to put these in steps for the sake of saving a little type:

1) I thought about the work I had made before. In previous work I focused completely on simple natural images-- some stylized to meet a graphic aesthetic, others more subtle and organic. I've decided to keep going in that direction, but to pull toward the more subtle from now on.

2) Find new meanings. So once I figure out the general direction, I try to find a few new ways to approach the images I will be pulling together. Its like a game-- once you know what the category is going to be, it becomes a lot easier to find items that fit within it.

My first focus is in going from macro to micro. I'm going to pull out far enough to depict a topographic map of Yellowstone Nat'l Park and then zoom in, one print after another, until I'm at the cellular level. This difference won't be a super big deal-- I won't sell them all as a set that can line up from one to the other or anything, but I'd like see what happens when I pull in slowly, and its help me explore some images that I would otherwise leave be.

The other way I'm going to broaden my scope is to commit a few works to exploring how humans and nature interact. How we study it, consume it, collect it, etc. Again, not to display together, but because its helped me better find images.

3) Impose limits.
These have the potential to be all over the place visually because of the ways I'm building on what I've done before, so in order to keep them under the same umbrella I'm committing to a few aesthetic choices:

1) Softer colors-- lots of white ink
2) Using more screens in each piece for a less graphic, more gradual effect
3) Organic, not harsh line work
4) Using natural, unbleached canvas.

4) Play Pictionary with yourself.
Next I start making lists. I filled a few pages in my sketchbook with random words: agate, brush, prarie, driftwood, stone wall, etc. Anything that fell into the range of my broad categories above. I went back and starred the ones that seemed interesting and circled any I had a personal connection with or was really excited about.

Then I turned those into some rapid thumbnail sketches, and decided that I liked where they were going or didn't. Some I scrap, some I think about and come back to, some I love and keep. I also think about prints I've made in the past, and if revisiting any of those ideas will fit in nicely with the sketches that are coming up.

So here's that list organized by each print type and size, going from micro to macro. I try to assign another word at this point to better describe them.

8x8" screen prints: leaf zoom, honeycomb, overlapping iris, circling fern, vintage wheat, driftwood collection, log pile, water table, rural british landscape.

4x16" screen print diptych: river stones(micro) and a rooted redwood tree (macro)
These will sell separate or together for a deal-- I'm really excited about this one!

Woodcuts: plant cells, stones, fleming creek, braided root, nest, Yellowstone map.

5) Render images several times.
Then I sketch it out a little more-- usually I add color to make sure they're all kind of working together. The color is in no way accurate, but gives me more information than pencil alone. I make small sketches because I think drawing is kind of boring and I like seeing everything on a page together.

So I make tiny ones that don't take long-- these are in a little 5x8" book.



On the left are some of the square screenprint ideas-- on the right is the diptych. They're kind of doodley at this point-- the printing process is great because I lose a lot of control over what they look like-- the end results won't be nearly as bubbly. They'll look nothing like this at the end, but its a start!

I'm going to start with screen prints this time because I feel like those came together a little more naturally than the woodcut prints during this process. Working back and forth allows me to put some ideas 'behind the couch' as an art teacher once said to me. She was a big fan of things working out in their time-- without being forced. So am I.