lovers popes and strange fruit for exchange 42

The Pope Card has been editioned

I'm currently printing the Lovers edition. This is a proof. A proof is a test print pulled to make sure my registration is correct and checking to see if any changes need to be made to the plates before I print an edition.

I'm currently carving the Chariot Keyline block

Just finished designing the Strength Card. The next digital collage will be The Hermit.

Baren 42 exchange participants may not want to go beyond this point!

the linoleum cut moons

printing paper moons

printed paper moons

paper moon with paste placed on plexi

substrate place over paper moon

plexiglass with substrate and paper moon being run through an etching press; in a process called Chine Colle the moons will be fused to the substrate with great pressure.

paper moon fused to substrate

a plethera of chine colle paper moons drying

inking up the linoleum cut strange fruit plate

the freshly inked linoleum plate will be run through the etching press with the chine colle paper moon substrate atop it.

the linoleum plate with a freshly pulled print

Strange Fruit, size 3" x 9", mixed media relief print, edition: 38
The above is 3 prints out of an edition of 38 prints. This means that 38 prints were close enough to being exactly the same.

Lovers, Choppers and a Community Painting

Bursts of Activity

The community painting created at the Alley Arts Festival this weekend. At first it was hard to get someone to pick up a brush and contribute to this painting but once the first person started dabbing others started painting into it as well.

Visitors age 2-92 at the Alley Arts Festival took part and made their marks.

"Strange Fruit" the digital sketch for a mixed media print project. I'll relief print the treeline and skeleton atop the chine colle'd moon that will be fused to dark blue fine art printmaking paper.

The Keyline for The Lovers. The next step is to transfer the keyline to 3 or 4 "Shina" plywood for the color plates.

This is my digital sketch for the next card in the series The Chariot.

Video of the Alley Arts Community Painting. Can you spot the chicken in the brush?


The photo above is from my other blog about my biggest distractions to art making:

Life Outside the Studio Window

2nd Saturday Artwalk

If you're out and about for the 2nd Saturday Artwalk come by say Hi and sling some paint onto the canvas I'll have in progress here!!! Find out just how much fun painting to live music is!!!

2ndSat.ArtWalk:

final

ALLEY ARTS FESTIVAL 2009

Last one of the 2009 Season

Host: KLSCstudio, Doolittle Properties, and Bridge To Art

Type: Music/Arts - Concert

Price: FREE

Date: Saturday, September 12, 2009

Time: 5:05pm - 10:05pm

Location: In the Alley behind 1812

Street: I Street

City:: Sacramento, CA

Description

Come check the final 2ndSat. ALLEY ARTS FESTIAL w/a Great Live Music Show and Artist Pavillion tonight, Sept. 12th with the SoulShakers (BluesRock), Jambination (East Indian, World) and Todd Morgan & The Emblems (Swing, DooWop) (6-10PM) in the Alley behind 1812 I Street in Sacramento, CA 95811
www.myspace.com/toddmorganandtheemblems
http://www.myspace.com/jambination
http://profile.bandpump.com/soulshakers

The Lovers Keyline is Complete

The Lovers Keyline block is complete

This is a photoshop phake proof. This is what I hope the printing of this will look like tomorrow when I proof then transfer this keyline to the woodblocks I will use to carve the color plates.

The Lovers Keyline in Progress

The lovers keyline block in progress. You can click on the image to see the original file and see details better. Click your browser's back icon to get back to this blog.

Below are photos taken by Rachel Stonecipher of Carol Wagner, my mentor and fellow barenforum.org member. The photos were taken about a month before Carol passed away.

In the above photo Carol is binding one of an edition of books we collaborated on. You can see the pages I created for the book in the following blogs:

Autmn Follies The first five spreads and Autmn Follies

In the photo above Carol and I were visiting an retrospective exhibit of our friend Alice Fong's life works at the museum of the Chinese Historical Society of America in San Francisco.

Yeah that's me looking coy...
The acordian book behind me was made by Alice Fong also that is not wallpaper on the wall behind me, its one of Alice's works, I believe its a large monoprint. Let me check the catalog...
...actually it's a 30" x 72" acrylic painting on canvas titled "Late Late Bloomers."

The book is 9"x36"x6." It's titled Chinese Zodiac Animals and is Serigraphy (silkscreen) and collage on Rives BFK fine art paper.

2nd Saturday Art Walk

Well I wont be @ Alley Arts Festival Today...thought the cold Hubby came down with last week was the same one I had in Tennessee...nope last night the soul rattling sneezes came...this morn my head is thick with ick. Don't feel up to hours on my feet painting, even if it is to live music & I don't care to share this misery with anyone. I'll just have to wait for next 2nd Saturday to paint to live music.

oh don't let my lack of presence dissuade you from attending the 2nd Saturday art events in Sacramento. if you were planning to attend do so still! Even without me its still very cool and the Alley Arts Festival is a lot of fun. Also there will be lots of other galleries with art and music all within walking distance in downtown Sacramento--all of it free to attend so go go go!

Alley Arts Festival

Come by and say HI! I'll be the one painting.

2ndSat. ArtWalk: Alley Arts Festival in Midtown, Sacramento

When: Saturday, August 08, 2009 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM PDT

KLSCstudio, BridgeToArt.com, Doolittle Properties, and JungleSupplyCo.com host:

2ndSat. ArtWalk: ALLEY ARTS FESTIVAL in Midtown, Sacramento
in the ALLEY between 18/19 & "I"/J Streets on a HUGE PARKING LOT.

Saturday, August 8, 2009 6-10PM

featuring:

12 Fine Artists &

LIVE MUSIC with Sacramento's own:

"Low Down Dirty Dogs"

&

The Red Hot "Jenn Rogar"

FREE TO ATTEND, OPEN TO THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY.

Hierophant Proofs

Finished State

Sketches for BarenForum.org Print Exchange 42

This Year's Inspiring Tennessee Skyline

as i signed up for the barenforum.org print exchange i thought about what i would make a print of to fit the Chu-tanzaku (3x9") paper format. I remembered the big orange full moon that greeted me on my return to Tennessee (just like last year) and thought that it might make a good focal point. Then my mind's eye saw it as it was rising above the tree line across from my son's front porch...perfect! The dark treeline silhouetted against the dark blue night sky with that big round orange ball rising above.

so I stepped out the front door with a ballpoint and my trusty composition pad to sketch the treeline. As I looked on it I couldn't help but notice the dead tree emerging from the martini glass shaped opening in the treeline and remembered how I thought a few days ago that I would have to draw that tree...PERFECT!

This is the sketch of the Tennessee treeline I did from my son's front porch with my original placement of the moon. As I sketched in the morning light I of course no longer had the full moon of a week ago to reference, but I do have the creative imagination needed to draw it from memory. As I did so I had a spark of something...what if I made a collage of simplified shapes and moved the moon around withing it to determine the best placement within the composition.

This is a construction paper collage I did playing around with the placement of the simplified tree silhouettes and the moon. I finally decided I like it best with the moon in the original location. But I am toying with the idea of randomly "chine colle"ing the moon on each print in different areas of the sky and of course the black treeline will be printed at the same time. I also like the idea of the dead tree breaking the top edge of the night sky; if I do this I'll cut the sky down by about a 16th of an inch so the top branches break out a little more dramatically.

Chine Colle is a printmaking process where thin paper is sprinkled with rice paste or other natural adhesive then fused to a damp paper substrate by passing it through a press. I'm thinking that circles of a nice orange mulberry paper would make a great moon fused to a midnight blue paper -- I even know the perfect fine art paper for my substrate...

Fabriano Roma Paper comes in may colors, one of them being a dark gray blue, it's expensive (about 12 dollars per 18" × 26" sheet) but with the smaller paper format in this exchange I can get a lot of prints from each sheet making it more reasonable financially than if the project was one of the other larger formats.

last years Tennessee skyline in July inspired artwork. A pastel drawing that I still intend to do a collage or chine colle version of, one day...

Da Pope Blocks

Number 5 The Hierphant Card

Hierophant Buff Block
I decided to print this part a buff color-somewhere between a natural butter color and sand.

Hierophant Red Block
The black areas will print the red parts of the card

Hierophant Blue Block
I will print this one with a blend of dark blue to black. The black area is what will print blue to black.

Hierophant Keyline Block
this block will be printed last in black. The Red line work is what will print; except the lines in the left hand corner and left center edge. These raised lines are called "Kentos." They are so I can bump the edges of the paper up to them for registration. Registration is how I make sure each of the colors line up as I print them.

Alley Arts Festival

Poetry and Jazz
22 x 28" Acrylic Painting on canvas board
publicly painted last night at the Alley Arts Festival.

Alley Arts Festival last night was too much coolness! It was way too much fun slinging paint around while beat poets and jazz musicians grooved not 20 feet away from me. One of the musicians told me I inspired her performance. I had about as much fun last night as one can have in public without chemical enhancements...

In other news, I turned 50 last week -- I survived a whole half a century!!! To celebrate this momentous milestone I'm going to give a 50% discount on all sales of my artwork for the rest of the month of June to anyone who asks for it. Just send me an email with "Happy Birthday Sale" in the subject line. Tell me the title of the work you want and your name in the email. I will then send you a private URL where you can purchase the artwork at 50% of the listed price.

Here are some links to sites that feature my artworks:

My Web Site: http://www.imp-s.com/

Web Portfolio: http://www.absolutearts.com/pharecamp/

My Etsy Shop: http://www.PhareCamp.etsy.com

Screening of "Drag Me to Hell"

Sac Horror Film Fest Screening of
"Drag Me to Hell"

Saw Drag Me to Hell on Tuesday night thanks to free passes from the Sacramento Horror Film Festival. I loved it! It was campy dark humor with a few moments of suspense only a little gore. It also kept you guessing as there were times when they did the predictable and times when you expected something predictable that didn't happen...It was only a little scary and a lof of fun.

It's tame enough to take a preteen or older child to see. A sensitive kid or younger then 8 might get nightmares. I don't remember any swearing in it and the sex was tamer than prime time. It reminded me of the campy late night horror flicks I was hooked on as a kid. Remember those weekend shows with a host that wore halloween makeup and a tuxedo who told corny morbid jokes before and after commercial breaks...that's the kind of horror flick I love.

Don't care for the carnage filled ax murder or brain eating zombie flicks. And sorry Rob Zombie -- I know what you do is also campy dark humored art but its too gross with creepy inbred characters that remind me too too much of some of the backwoods stereotypes I ran into in Alabama...House of 1000 Corpses gave me psychologically disturbing dreams for days (no nightmares, its not as scary as The Thing Under the Stairs [nothing but mouth full of all those sharp F'in' teeth!])

Drag me to Hell doesn't pretend to be high art, its just good ol' fashioned B movie fun that goes great with a big bucket of greasy popcorn and large coke spiked with the Captian that fit nicely in my pocketbook...

Thank You!

A hug filled thank you to the Men and Women of the U.S. Army...oh yeah a grateful hug to those who served in those other forces too...;^}

My Grandfather Raul Rodriguez and his brothers.

Hierophant Blue Block and Lovers Key Block

The blue block for the Hierophant is carved

These are the printed proofs of the adjusted keyline for the Hierophant.

I've started carving the Keyline block for the Lovers

Here is the lovers with changes I made to the design. I made the figures larger. I changed the bouquet the bride carries and I put lotus blossoms in the pool of the unconscious.