Drew is trying to raise money today with a “fun-raiser” for his new gallery, Art Buy the Inch. He’s selling 100 copies each of 10 original prints, at the low, low price of $10 per. You can buy the prints in person today in downtown Portland, or order online at Mohdi.com for $12 per. Drew, count me in for a set.
After the success of my last burning art experience, I had an idea. I laid down some of the rusty metal bits laying around my work area, and put them on a scrap piece of cedar. After assembling a rough 5×5 on the wood, I took a torch to it. Here is the result:
I have always wondered how you cut your own mats. I feel confident I could make a nice frame, but never knew how to cut the mats. Now I just need to learn how to properly cut glass and I’m all set.
I have purchased custom frames from American Frame before, and always been really satisfied with the experience. They have some nice calculators that let you start with your artwork dimensions and add to it mat width on all sides, as well as figuring extra to fill in a frame. They ship you the dissembled frame by mail, and you assemble it and insert your artwork. Materials are high quality and always nicely finished. Highly recommended.
Today, I got an e-mail from them that they are starting a new service that allows artists to actually sell prints of their work through the American Frame web site. I haven’t signed up yet, but I assume you probably upload high quality scans/photos of your work to their site, and they in turn print out high-quality Giclee prints as customers request your work. Then, they cut you a check (price is whatever YOU set for your work) periodically based on your sales. I think you should try it out, Gabe! Some of your landscapes would be great, I think.
Tonight I finished up the woodblock print idea I had a few weeks ago. I tried it first on a piece of 5-ply birch plywood, but the veneer was really thin and I gave up on the block midway through. I started again with a linoleum block I found rooting through some old art supplies.
I began the block carving by laying out for the holes with a square and Sharpie. Next, I used a spade bit chucked in the drill press to drill the center hole and the ring surrounding it, leaving a doughnut-shaped area to print. Here’s a test print I did after just drilling, but before doing any carving. Some uneven ink coverage, but this was just for illustration purposes.
Here is a shot of the block in progress. You can see that I did outlines with a v-gouge, and then used a regular u-gouge to clear the rest of the non-printing areas.
Once I finished cleaning out the non-printing areas, I did my first test print. For this print, I inked the block, set a piece of paper on top of it, and cranked the press down.
A pretty good first print. Since it’s a new press, I thought I’d experiment by using a piece of printng felt on top of the paper but beneath the press plate. I also cleaned up a few areas that I missed before. The felt distributes the pressure better, so more areas revealed themselves than I intended, but the ink coverage was better.
I cleaned up the areas I didn’t want to print, and tried again with the felt. This is as close as I got to a satisfactory print (pretty darn close).
After getting good results, I thought I’d try a technique I used at the University of Iowa, that is, soaking the paper before printing. It should be noted that I am using water-based block printing ink
What a mess the block was after all that water was squeezed onto it. I decided to try another print to soak it up, but without adding any ink to the mix. A second-generation print like this is usually called a “ghost print.”
My ink was starting to dry out at this point, but the block was wet, so I went for one more print.
I only pulled 6 prints before the ink started to dry out. The benefit to oil-based ink is that it dries slower, allowing more time printing, but it’s a bear to clean up and requires lots of rags and paint thinner. So I’ll either keep to small runs or switch to oil. I think I’ll stick with the water-based for now.
Here’s a view of the completed printing press after assembly, glue-up and sanding. Looks pretty good, right? Just like Gutenberg.
I tried cutting my first handcut dovetails on this project - the stresses on the frame seemed to beg for the full treatment, but as it was my first time, they were pretty sloppy.
I ended up reinforcing the joints with 1/2 inch through pegs.
I had another craptastic realization when sanding - the wood I thought was maple that I used for the top and side braces was actually basswood. I got a load of misc. wood on Craigslist and guess I didn’t sort it very well. Rough, they look very similar, but the weight really should have clued me in. Hopefully, it will still be strong enough to withstand the press’ forces.