"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." ~Andy Warhol~
Once and and a while I get together with a few of my teacher friends to fool around playing some blues. This is a link to us playing as a fill during a show at the high school (me on drums). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX8h-5qN_Hs
"There are enough ideas, images, symbols and experiences in your head already to work with for a lifetime. It's a little like having a car with an unpredictable battery though. Sometime you get in and it starts right up. Other times, especially if it has been sitting idle for awhile, you turn the key and nothing happens."
~Bert Dodson, Keys to Drawing~
I have been working on a Solarplate etching the last few days. Solarplates are so much easier and safer than traditional acid etching. For this printing I drew on a clear plastic sheet. The copper plate is first exposed to the sun using an aquatint screen, then exposed again using the drawing. The plate is rinsed with water and then ready to be printed.
Keizaburo Matsuzaki is a Master Print maker who has been making woodblock prints for over 36 years. Below is a link to a Youtube video showing how gracefully he handles the tools of woodblock printing. Also a link to a well written story about him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8uF3PZ3KGQ
"Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Now I mean, I'm talking about singing in the shower, I'm talking about dancing to the radio, I'm talking about writing a poem to a friend--a lousy poem." ~Kurt Vonnegut~
"Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
Once upon a time (long, long ago) I had a girlfriend who had a talent that I was very unaware of. After a thirty year separation, we reconnected and I now get to enjoy her wonderful art.
"When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, the artist listens." ~Madeleine L'Engle~
...but not the way you might think. I finished a test pastel I've been working on using a technique I saw Australian artist Leesa Padget do on Youtube. Alcohol is used on the pastels in the under painting. I sort of chickened out and didn't go as far as Leesa does, but a good learning experience.
I studied art many, many years ago, then drifted away from it pursuing a living. Ten years ago, through a love for photography, I revisited my art and creative side.
In this new adventure, I discovered printmaking. Linocuts and woodblock work hold so many surprises for me.
Personal Webpage -
http://www.downstairscreations.com