Woodcut Class Week 4

Teaching woodcut tonight, so some rain was inevitable.  Luckily the worst of it came earlier, after I had moved the large paper to my car and before I got to the Studio and needed to unload.  One advantage of teaching a class in the same building where I have a Studio is that some of what I need is already there.  Just two trips to carry in everything I needed for tonight's concluding class.

Got to the building around 4 pm, well before class was happening.  I could see that room #3 was all kinds of torn up, but I expected nothing else.  Eventually I'll want to know what they are doing to that room, but it can wait.  Saw Nichole just long enough to verify today's teaching location and that she would take care of posting the signs, then she was off to a meeting.  I went downstairs to relax a little before setting up.  No Molly.  Also, no hallway light outside our door.  Saw it fixed on Monday, saw it work yesterday, and now it's broken again.  I'll have to bring it to their attention.  Meanwhile I took advantage of the solitude to listen to a disc I keep there, a copy of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!  Nick Cave is certainly an odd ball, who I first was exposed to in Carbondale when an undergrad saw my print of St Christina the Astonishing on my wall and said he knew the story from the song.  Seems that Cave was in the process of kicking heroin and started getting into religion, including reading about saints.  (the student lent me a copy of the album the song came from, and sure enough it's a straightforward account of the life of St Christina the Astonishing, the second Christina on that day, so she had to have a specifying characteristic) The title song in this later album was a joining of fragments from different songs (something the Beatles did from time to time), an odd combination of the intellectual activity of a man in a coma, and the life of a man who was resurrected from the dead, and wandered around California as a cult leader, before returning to New York City and dying on the street as a homeless drug addict.  Like I said, an odd ball, but he often makes you think. The rest of the album is all over the place, but somehow it all holds together.

By 5:30 I had started moving stuff over to the Cafeteria and getting ready for class.  This is week 4, which is when all the printing happens.  My two students have been working toward this goal, with both buying their own tools and working their blocks.  I made sure to have paper, ink, printing tools, etc.  I was ready when they arrived.

While hands were still clean we picked out the papers.   They both really liked the plain Rives, both soft and substantial, but also appreciated the decorative papers- bold colors, interesting textures, etc.  Used my metal straight edge to tear a few pieces to size.  I talked about ink and they chose to go with the oil based black ink- more work to clean up, but the black is so much darker and bolder.  And then they went to town.

When you have one night to print all your blocks, you can't waste any time.  Plus they really wanted to see what they had.

Pencil rubbings and preparatory drawings can be nice, but nothing compares to the first time you see a block inked and printed.  Relief printing is just so powerful.

Above is some of Nelly's output from tonight.  We had taken a proof of the eel head in my Studio the other day, but she saw the difference better ink and paper can make, and the other two were done with some of the wood I gave her that day and her new tools.  Mary Claire's piece is a little larger, started in class on week 2.  From the beginning it was always intended to be colored, and plans to go in with watercolor after the ink dries.

Below is the whole assortment of tonight's prints.  They had a busy night.

But soon class was over.  Both have plans for their next prints, and the knowledge to do them.  I'll be curious to see what develops. I explained to them that there is no part 2 to this class, and taking it again means more of the same, except less time needing instructions and more time working on their chosen projects.