What I've Been Up To...

This semester I've been volunteering in a color theory class as a teaching assistant for Mick Sheldon at American River College. Painted a lot of charts in the very cool workbook Mick created for the class.  That's because he want me to do the class work as well as help out.  Mostly I try to pay attention to what he's doing when he demo's technique so I can observe good color theory teaching techniques.  Now I'm working on the last class project where we create 10 paintings of objects using the color theory learned in class to solve specific problems.   The first thing I did was to do 7 sketched underpaintings.  I used Conte and charcoal then used a brush and water to blend it.  I only did 7 sketches because we're allowed to do 3 of the illustration in the computer so I took some photos to play with Warholizing...  Below are the 7 sketches. Later I'll post the Warholized photos.

Peace Love and Pit Bulls Art Show

The large 36x46" mixed media painting will be showing in the above fundraiser exhibit. I've also been working on other ideas for the above exhibit. first i did some sketches of photos my son's dog one as a puppy and another as a a big dog.

Bubba da Beast - careful he just may lick ya ta death...





Then a friend said she loved the pics but wanted me to do one of her bully Lexi. So I worked with a photo of Lexi in a pink parka. First I sketched it, then I did a collage onto a 12"x12" canvas and added details with marker and acrylic paints. I'll be contributing the canvas to the fundraiser.

the above Snow Bully ACEO is a tiny mixed media collage
I just listed it in my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/listing/45084666/snow-bully-aceo

I also plan on using the Snow Bully painting to shoot silkscreen positives for playing around with my new YUDO silkscreening system. But today I'm going to experiment with the sketches to try my hand at encaustic monoprinting...

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

I'm Printsy This Week!

The above silk screen print Nora's Daffodils II was featured in Who's Printsy This Week. An entry in the blog Printsy: Printmakers of Etsy.

Solar Printing and Silkscreen Exposure Unit

There has been a thread going in the Baren Forum regarding solar printing and UV exposure. I decided to post a few pictures of an exposure unit I set up...

Contact Frame made using a hinged frame with black craft foam backing to press glass tight. This wore out quickly, I highly recommend getting a contact frame for this if you're serious about doing it a lot, try ebay.



Went to Target and bought a $12 wire shelf set up for 3 shelves. bottom shelf is about 2 inches from table top. The top shelf is set so that the lamps that will be hung using tie straps are about 14" from the frame. Yes I did remove the glass from the lamps. This system worked great but you must take care of safety!!!

Please click these pictures to open them for a better view. Your safety is important. Use your back arrow to return to this page.

You see this setup? Notice the industrial UV vision protection, do go to the hardware store and invest a few dollars in a pair, your eyes as an artist are your most valuable tools...I have a timer that automatically shut the lights off at the end; you can get one at Adorama for $150 or you can get one for about $10 from ebay like I did. I did end up timing some of my exposures longer than a minute and used a kitchen timer. I simply stayed in the room and hit the powerstrip toggle the second the buzzer went of. The reason my exposure times took longer was because I kept my lights so far from the contact frame. This prevented the melting of the solar plates but the long time in the heat still melted my aquatint screen.

OK now how to hang out with your lights without getting sunburn by the uv rays...easy I made a case from black foam core that drops down over the top. I cut a little door hinged with duct tape in the front and a cut a hole in the back for a small fan to suck out the heat. I used little blocks of wood to hold the case up off the table about an inch for ventilation. Close the door when before turning on the lights or you will get sunburned!

It is possible to set this system up, it does take some trial and error to get your timing right. You should make sure to ventilate things well. In addition to the little fan in the back I use a little clip on fan to push air at the bottom crack.

I kept the room dark enough to use during daylight as well by putting black foamcore in the window. I used a 40W yellow bug lite to adiquately light the room without exposing the plates. I did a lot of internet research on this settup as my online college classes had us spending a fortune on specialized products. I found in my research that many of those special products were discovered by artists using regular household stuff...I also use this set up for exposing silkscreens.
Some of Patti’s research on Halogen Exposure Units
http://www.ccsf.edu/Departments/Art/Printmaking/private/non_toxic_pages/photopolyer_page_image.htm

8. Halogen Bulbs can be used and there is no complication of reduced light emission after a set amount of time. It simply burns out.

a. both photo-flood and halogen bulbs can be used immediately, there is no need for warm up. Also both are best as 500 Watt bulbs used in pairs or fours.

9. Mercury and Metal Halide Bulbs provide true and intense light.

a. both need at least 5 minutes to warm up to their true intensity before using for exposure of photo-polymer plate.

b. you should protect your eyes from extreme light.

c. need a shutter box set up since light must remain on between turning on and exposing of plate to various screens and transparencies.

1) 1996, Dove article on how to make an Exposure Unit Box, Printmaking Today.

http://www.usask.ca/lists/alt-photo-process/2002/jul02/0330.htm

My UV setup is simple and inexpensive. For the Imagon plates I use two 500-watt halogen worklights suspended about 14 inches above the plate. My average exposure time is about two minutes using a halftone laser positive. For the solar plates, I use 4 black light bulbs (BLB) suspended about 6-8 inches above the plate. My average exposure time is about 3-5 minutes with a laser halftone. Both plates are developed using a tray of water (for solar plate) and water with soda ash (for Imagon). The plates are then re-exposed to UV light for about 3-5 minutes to harden the plate