Nightmare Clown

 Well I finally finished the Mixed Media Clown Painting.  As you saw in the previous post I painted the background then adhered decorative papers to the painting to create my visualization of Pennywise, the antagonist in Stephen King's novel "IT".

 I adhered marblized blue gift wrap for the collar.

 White mulberry paper makes up the face and printed scrapbook paper was used for the mouth.

 Scraps of red hand made vegetable dyed paper are the nose and eyes.  Very thin orange mulberry was layered three times for the hair and bitty bits of scraps were layered over the black mulberry eyebrows.

 I made the eyes a bit more compelling with blue linen paper for the iris and holographic foil for the pupils.  The reflective holographic paper has a checkerboard pattern which makes it appear as if the eyes may be compound.

I finished it off by drawing with color sharpie markers to create the illusion of depth and shadow.  The whole is protected by a few layers of clear matte acrylic medium.  The face and spots of highlight are enhanced with a layer of iridescent acrylic medium.

He is offered for sale at http://www.absolutearts.com/cgi-bin/portfolio/art/your-art.cgi?login=pharecamp&title=Beep_Beep_Ritchie-1299361368t.jpg

Phenomenon: Rabbits Rabbits Everywhere Rabbits...

"It's just a rabbit" 8x8" mixed media collage on canvas panel

"Its Just a Rabbit" sketch for barenforum exchange print

"Its Just a Rabbit" kind of where I'm going with this but I'm not happy with the flourishes. still playing around with the composition. I intend to woodcut print this for an exchange with other artist and then use the keyline plate for my year of the rabbit new years cards. I'll split it into thirds and get three new years cards per pressing...

While cleaning up old files I came across this drawing that I based a woodcut print off of back in the early 1990s. I traced it to start a mixed media collage. Since this drawing is on tracing paper I'm thinking that it would be great to put into an encaustic painting. The transparencies of the paper and wax mediums will work together beautifully. I just have to get over to the art supply store and purchase a clayboard painting panel for my substrate.

"Beep Beep Ritchie!" 12x12" gallery wrapped canvas mixed media collage (in progress)
This is no where near done. This is simply a painted canvas with the cut papers collaged onto the surface. I've yet to got into it with sharpie markers to give it detail and I'm going to put some red hologram paper into the pupils. thinking of layering some more of the orange paper into the hair to give it some dimension and i will be using a dense acrylic medium in the teeth to make them appear to come out of mouth. May also work on the background a little more too.

Illustration Friday: Burning

This weeks illustration challenge for Illustration Friday is Burning. I think the above artwork is a fine illustration of the theme! This work was one of 4 woodcut images printed atop digital printouts that were then tipped into editioned books. The accompanying book text for this image is ""How About a Little Fire Scarecrow!" ~Wicked Witch of the West"

First I created a collage of digital imagery

Then I created a woodblock printing plate

Then I blurred the digital collage in photoshop to give it a watercolor painting effect. I printed the digital collage on fine mulberry paper from my canon printer. I then hand printed the woodblock plate on top of the digital printouts. I did an edition of 10 for hardbound books sewn by my late mentor Carol Wagner. I also did an edition of 4 printed on masa paper that were sewn into soft bound books by me. The other three images I created have been printed on 8.5x11" 100% cotton rag in editions of 25 for framing. This one is ready for me to print the edition suitable for framing.

See my blogs about this project at:
http://phare-camp.blogspot.com/2006/10/bookarts-midterm.html
http://phare-camp.blogspot.com/2006/10/autmn-follies-first-five-spreads.html
http://phare-camp.blogspot.com/2006/10/autmn-follies.html

Two Art Shows Coming Up but will I be there?

I have works in two exhibits opening this weekend; I hope to be dividing my time between the two Galleries on Saturday evening. I've got a severe cold and ear infection, I'm not very confident that I'll be well enough to be running around town by Saturday. We'll see, if my bent twig Megan is up to doing the driving I may be able to handle it.

Speaking of Bent Twigs (how's that for a segue) one of the exhibits titled "Bent Twigs" is a show in which up and coming artists works will show along side works by an established artist that mentored them. The above encaustic painting will be hung with two more of my works on the same wall as three of my bent twig Megan Robinson's works.

the above painting by Megan Robinson is showing in the bent twigs exhibit at the Vox Gallery

A large body of my works form the Zen Series will be on display at the U20 Gallery this month as well. I'm quite honored to be represented in this gallery incarnation of the "Bridge to Arts" organization. Bridge to Arts promises to be a significant influence in support of the arts in Sacramento.

the above painting titled "Cerberus" is from my Zen Series of artworks created by the universe... It will be exhibited with a large body of other works from the series.

I donated the above silkscreen print to a silent charity auction that will be held at the Vox Gallery this Saturday. The proceeds from the auction will benefit the National Transplant Assistance Fund.

Dr. Atl and Lady Liberty
Original Silk Screen Print
18 x 24" monoprint silkscreen on white Stonehenge paper. Edition of 15.
This is print number 15 of 15.

Dr. Atl waxes philosophic with Lady Liberty in the Library of the Americas in this postmortem collaboration. The positive for this print was drawn by my late mentor Carol Gilbert-Wagner. It was in preparation for an edition of prints of imagery from her large painting "Conversations with Liberty."

Carol had given me the positive on mylar to take home and said when she was feeling better she would come over and the two of us would pull an edition of silkscreen prints from it. She never did feel better; a few weeks later she left us for the grandest adventure of all.

I went ahead and burned a screen with Carol's positive and printed it over my own abstract silkscreen monoprints. The abstract background colors are different in every print.

To honor Carol anytime I offer one of these prints for sale the proceeds will go toward a charity.

if you can't make the auction one of the prints may be purchased from my Etsy.com shop (http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10413928) where half the proceeds will benefit one of Carol's favorite charities "The Maitreya Project." http://www.maitreyaproject.org/en/index.html

Now What...

Did my final review for the MFA (master's in fine art degree) in December. The degree was awarded. I presented the following 8 cards and several recent derivative works.

Buzzed 36x48" Mixed Media Encaustic Painting (unfinished)

Calaca 2009 8.5x8.5" Collagraph Plate

Magus II 16x20" Mixed Media Encaustic Painting

Foolish Mandala 36x48" Mixed Media Acrylic Painting

this is by no means the end. I intended this project to be the beginning of a life work. Really -- there are 78 cards in a tarot deck, there is no way I could complete that in a year and a half! I do intend to complete 10 editions of 78 cards! In the next few month I plan to re-work the fool and the magus while I research and design the rest of the major arcana. I also plan to continue creating derivative works. And of course its time to start looking for my first teaching position...

And just to reassure you followers of this project -- the design for strength and a quicky sketch of my first visualization of the hermit...

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.

IF: Superstition and Inspire Thursday: Ghost

La Llorona, The Weeping Woman mourns eternally for in a moment of madness she drowned her poor babies and upon realizing what she had done ran screaming back to the river to join them.

...children, hurry home before dark and kiss your mammas who love you. If you should hear the wailing --"¿donde estan mis hijos?" (where are my children?) -- run, run home quickly for if you tarry under the full moon she may clasp you to her breast and then you will see her empty eyes leaking tears of blood. And then if you don't die from fear then you will die when she takes you with her -- back to her watery grave.

Autmn Follies The first five spreads

I'm posting these in spreads so you can see how it would look as the book is opened. Unfortunately I've not figured out how to get the images to publish in the order I want them in, I even tried using sequetial file names but that trick didn't work...oh well I hope you all enjoyed my little book...I'm having fun in this class and there is sooooo much cool stuff I'm learning.

Each sheet of Masa paper is 20" x 8". I formatted each sheet in Microsoft publisher so it would print the graphic for one page and the text for the following page. Each sheet is folded in half with the folded edge to the outside, meaning it is the edge you will turn as you open the pages. The two edges of each sheet that were folded together were bound within the stitces. I printed 8 sheets that folded and bound made up 16 pages.

The rest of the book is in the next/previous post. Remember, as always you can click on an image to see a larger view, when done looking at it use your browser's back button to get back to the blog. ~PPC~