A History of Art part 2

I got up to the Studio in the afternoon, with the primary goal of working on the new History print. Today I prepared the piece of wood. I have this 2' x 4' sheet that I bought a few months ago, with the hopes of using it for a portrait project that has been put off for a while. It's a pretty smooth sheet, but I decided to surface it anyway. I applied the stuff inside, but took it to the back steps outside my studio to do the sanding. I usually take the blocks outside to sand, especially when they're large like this. The material is not particularly toxic, but I still don't want to be breathing a lot of it in, or even having to clean it up. If you look carefully (click on it to see it bigger), you'll see the difference between the unsanded left side and the sanded right side.

Another project was packaging a print for sale. Last month PCNJ held a fundraiser event at which they auctioned off one of my prints. I recently learned that in fact it had gone for almost $100 over the listed value after some competitive bidding. I wondered if this meant that there would be further demand for the print. Didn't take long. Over the weekend I got a call from Susan at Riverbank Arts, a gallery in Stockton that has some of my work for sale, something I mention on my website. She said a customer was looking to buy that very same print, and asked if I could get one up to her. Further investigation revealed that the interested party was someone who had seen it at the auction, so we thought it appropriate to handle this through the Print Council. So I'll bring it with me to the reception this weekend, and the buyer can pick it up then or any time after.

And speaking of galleries, I took a time out to stroll over to Asbury and check out one of the newer galleries in the Cookman Ave area, a place called Crybaby Gallery. The place focuses on lowbrow high quality art. A lot of tattoo influenced imagery in the current show. The Outlaw Printmakers would definitely be at home here. Then back to the Studio to spend a little while going though art books looking for ideas for a mural, but more about that in the next post.