Tuesday, June 30, 2009

ART ON THE LAKE



Received my invitation for Big Bear's annual art show. I only have a short time to decide if I want to do it again this year. You can see how busy my booth was last year.



Actually, we did have a lot of people viewing (and even buying) my work. It was something I wanted to do, but I'm thinking that I have it out of my system now.


Saturday, June 27, 2009

THE WAY IT SHOULD BE DONE


My new found interest in scratchboard art led me to a fantastic artist discovery. Judy Larson pulls beautiful pictures of horses and wolves from the flat black ink. You can also find hidden and concealed images in her art! http://www.judylarson.com/imagekey/index.htm


She also has a good demonstration of scratchart technique here.



Friday, June 26, 2009

SCRATCHBOARD III


Just a little more to do which is good. I'm tired of this one and ready to move on!!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

IN THE PARK


This one of the very few woodblock prints I’ve done using multiple blocks. I usually use the reduction technique where one block is cut and printed a number of times with different colors.

Registering the paper on each block was a challenge for me.

This print has been published in McClain’s Catalog and posted on other internet blogs.
Click here to see detail.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Scratchboard II


More work done on my scratchboard attempt. Guitar almost finished. I've been hesitant on starting work on the shirt. Will need different texture to show the folds and creases. I'm not sure about that yet!!

Friday, June 19, 2009

SCRATCHBOARD



I'm venturing off into uncharted territory for me. I've started a scratchboard drawing.

Scratchboard or scraperboard is a technique where drawings are created using sharp knives and tools for etching into a thin layer of white China clay that is coated with black India ink.

Scratchboard can also be made with several layers of multi-colored clay, so the pressure exerted on the instrument used determines the color that is revealed. Using scratchboard is said to yield a highly detailed, precise and sometimes textured artwork.

Using a sharp, angled blade or scratch tool an outline is made on the surface of the scratchboard. Scratchboard can be purchased in either all black or all white sheets. Shadows and Highlights are created by "scratching" away at the board. Artists using the white scratchboard paint draw black areas onto it and then proceed to scratch into the black portions to create their drawing. Alternatively, the cleared portions of the scratchboard may be left blank for a stark black-and-white image. Various techniques such as hatching or stippling can be used to texture and detail the image further.
Lots to do yet, but very interesting and fun.
Detail

Thursday, June 18, 2009

ESA-PEKKA


Today is graduation day in our small town. Coaching both football and baseball at the high school over the past twenty years has given me some wonderful friendships. All of the students that I've had the privilege to know and coach, plus teachers that have become part of my life.


Mike Harrison teaches English at our high school and has also taken on the role of one of my 'blues buddies'! His guitar playing is the only thing that gives what we do any chance of being called music!!


Mike asked me to do a painting for him of Esa Pekka Salonen, a conductor and person that Mike has long admired. I look for any excuse to get downstairs so....
Mixed media acrylic and color pencil painting

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

TERI PRINT



Woodblock print I did of Teri.




Instead of gluing the drawing, I drew my picture directly onto the woodblock.


Since this was to be a single color (black) print, I printed the background with muli-colored inks first.
After cutting the block, the prints were then pulled using black ink on Japanese Gampi paper.




MOKU HANGA TUTORIAL

Here is a link to a great video of the woodblock printmaking technique by Graham Scholes'


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dliF74ojOho

MOKU HANGA


Woodblock printing in Japan, (moku hanga) is a technique that was used very widely for printing books. It was also used in China for centuries to print books, long before the advent of movable type. The technique is essentially the same as that which is called woodcut in Western printmaking.

By the eleventh century, Buddhist temples in Japan were producing their own printed books of sutras, mandalas, and other Buddhist texts and images. For centuries, printing was restricted only to the Buddhist sphere, as it was too expensive for mass production, and did not have a receptive, literate public to which such things might be marketed.
It was not until 1590 that the first secular work would be printed in Japan. This was the Setsuyōo-shūu, a two-volume Chinese-Japanese dictionary.

The medium quickly gained popularity among artists, and was used to produce small, cheap, art prints as well as books.
The technology, though more tedious and expensive than later methods, was far less so than the traditional method of writing out each copy of a book by hand; thus, Japan began to see something of literary mass production.
Technique
The text or image would first be drawn onto Washi (Japanese paper), and then glued onto a plank of wood, usually cherry. Wood would then be cut away, based on the outlines given by the drawing. A small wooden hard object called a baren would be used to press or burnish the paper against the inked woodblock, thus applying the ink onto the paper.
Excerpts from Wikipedia



Sanctuary







My wife Teri, has given me the great gift of allowing the lower floor of our home in Big Bear Lake, California to be my hide-a-way and sanctuary.

There I can make a mess with paint or ink to my heart’s content. It is also there that I get together with friends and make a sound that we like to pretend is good blues music. Teri retreats to the third floor, far from the noise!