Boardwalk Days part 55

As I reach the end of this process, I am very excited to see how this will end up.  I know more or less what will happen, having done two other copies of this in full color, but this is the final version.  The front door was wide open, and there were some people I didn't know hanging out on the first floor, but I ignore them. Went down to my space in the basement, then the men's room there in the basement.  It was very dark, just a faint flicker in the overhead fluorescent lights.  Maybe the switch wasn't properly on.  When I flicked the switch, there was no light.  That faint flicker was the light fully on.  That won't do.  That flicker gave me just enough light to take care of my business, then I reported it to the office.  They knew about it, said it would probably be fixed over the weekend.  So back to work.

Cleared my table, got the color proof in progress, and continued my work.  One thing I noticed right away was that the large blue sky was looking a little blotchy, perhaps some drying that happened after I put it away.  I may have to go back and add some more of my sky blue color.  That will wait for another day.  My plan for today was some other cool colors, all worked out on other copies.  I started with a medium blue (sort of like an ultramarine, but this set of pans is not labeled) and used it for a lot of clothing on the boardwalk, the ocean, then an unlabeled green (halfway between an emerald and a mint) for more clothing, and a lot of trim on Convention Hall.  The changes are very noticeable, as you can see in the photo below:

No Molly there, but I did have my rock/pop book of discs, so figured I would listen to that.  However, the discs I tried would eventually stop during songs.   Was this a problem with my disc player, or the home burned discs?  Since this happened with multiple discs, I tend to think it is more the player, which I have had for a few decades (I know I've had this one since before we were building tables) but I like to use the scientific method to eliminate variables and I can do some of that at home. 

I exited the building on the first floor (taking advantage of public restroom with lights) and discovered that the people I saw when I came in were there to take down the show on the first floor.  Time flies I guess.  

Boardwalk Days part 54

 Another day to do some coloring, get this thing done.  What is left is cool colors and intense colors.  Again not exactly the same order I did things on the practice proof, but the same rough order I have traditionally used.  So today I did the biggest color section I had left, that large amount of sky in this one.  This time I made a larger amount of the color I needed, as opposed to last time where I made three batches of the sky blue color to get it all done.  The results were about the same, as you can see below:

For music I had my rock/pop book of discs with me, and from this I selected my Jayhawks collection, songs from the first two albums, written about back in November of 2019 if you want to know more about it. At this point it looks like two more sessions of coloring should complete this print. Then I can move on to the next project.

Boardwalk Days part 53

 Nothing else I had to do today, so back to work on this boardwalk print.  Predicted weather for today called for a lot of rain, but what I saw was fairly light.  Didn't even need full strength wipers- intermittent wipers would do fine.  Hmmm... this was a good day to listen to the Wipers as I worked, and I had the appropriate book of discs with me.  The gray skies and dampness did make it seem to be a good day to listen to this band from Portland, Oregon, a disc I made to bring to Texas, now part of my Studio collection, and written about many times, such as July of 2019 on this blog.  Plenty of parking in the main lot.

Of course, dry inside the Studio.  Brought my watercolors in from the car, cleared off my table, and took my finished practice piece off the wall.  Today I was working on grays and browns which make up many parts of the image, and matched up the values with the previous example.  But I got all that done while the music played.  Results can be seen below:

I figure two or three more sessions should do it.  What I have left is the cool colors, and the intense and dark colors. I know I have the watercolors, as I did a practice copy before.  I have no immediate plans for exhibiting this print, so I likely won't print and color another one next, but rather start something new when this one is finished.

But today, the music finished, so I packed up, put everything back where it had been, loaded my car, and went home.  Not much rain on the way home, but I didn't mind.

Important Studio Business

 I went up to my Studio this morning, but not to draw, print, or color.  Today was to meet with a potential purchaser, something we artists need to do once in a while.  She picked the time and day, and she has been to my space before, so she knows how to find the building.  

I had the print ready to go, but wanted to cut it loose from the board I had it stretched on and sign and number it before she got there, but I was able to do all that.  I also took out the alternate version (on okawara) to give her a choice.  Prepared an appropriate size piece of glassine to pack it in.  Then I took out all the saint blocks I had, a mix of some from Carbondale, and some that have been done since.  Most of my saint blocks were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy, but I removed what was not damaged from the basement where they had been stored and relocated them to the Studio.  I have a complete set of the colored prints as well, which were in my apartment, but those are currently in storage, and I don't know when I get to see those again.

My guest had come to pick up a copy of St Dwynwen,  the only saint that didn't come from my Butler's source, but rather from a piece I saw on television, as this popular Welsh saint is not acknowledged by either the Catholic church or the Episcopalian either.  All we have is the remains of an old church in Wales, and a popular local custom that involves carved wood shapes (especially spoons) given as a sign of affection.  To separate it from the rest of the series (maybe 80 or so prints now) I went with a different format, making it in the form of a playing card.  Ann and her husband had seen the print during an open studio back in 2024, I reminded them of this year's.  They didn't come, but she wanted the print, so I created and colored a few recently, and when I had something ready, I sent an email.  Today was the day she picked to come get it.  I had warned her that the door may be locked, but I would be there to open it if I needed to. 

Ann arrived just a few minutes after the planned time, and I led her downstairs to my space, hard for even experience people to find sometimes.   First we took care of the Dwynwen exchange (she chose the  version of Lightweight paper, which is what I had intended), gave me the agreed upon price.  Then she wanted to look at all the saint blocks I had.

Eventually she chose two saints that she liked, and we agreed on a price.  I figured I could find an image of the more recent one online, and hoped I could remember enough of the older one to pick some colors.    I may have to buy another tube or two of watercolor, but we have no deadline for this.  

After that we stopped by the office.  Ann was very excited to see the art on the first floor, and she is always looking for places to host a group exhibition.  So I showed her where that was, introduced her to Jeanne, and they exchanged information.  From here it's their thing to work out.  Ann had put me into a show once before, but I am not part of this one. 

On the way home, I stopped at the Wall public library.  I don't go there as often as I used to (when I lived in that town and didn't have internet yet), but I still have a Monmouth county library card. and in the past they had a copy of the full set of Butler's Lives of the Saints on the shelves in the reference section, and I wanted to give Ann the correct information about the saints she chose.  One of those saints was from Carbondale, and the other pretty old as well, and I couldn't remember the details of the stories.  The reference shelves were empty, but with some help I found what I needed, took care of business, and headed home. 

Boardwalk Days part 52

I thought about what I would do today, just two days after I last printed.  The newly printed things may still be wet, so I don't want to color those.  And the thing I made some repairs on is the latest boardwalk print- just a few spots of ink, but I wanted to avoid those.   But in the end, that is what I decided to work on, so I avoided those areas of the print and the colors I would need for those.  I may have done some gray today, but now I decided to go with some earth reds, still a warm and light color.  No Molly today, so I listened to the music I brought, my rock/pop book, and specifically the Beatles legendary white album, written about here back in January of 2020.  

No ink to clean up today, so I knew things would go a little faster.  Just had to fill up my can with water, using the sink in our room.  I took the finished test one down from the wall, which I didn't need for the brick and dark red things I expected to do, but it came in handy for some of the other bits of color I did today.  Results are below:

Since I didn't want to do any of the neutral grays, I did the pavers in the foreground, the various earth reds,  a slightly faded red (the more intense version will wait until I do darker and more intense colors), some brown, some yellow, some orange.  I put it back in the rack to continue drying, put everything back on my table, and headed home for lunch.

Kind Hearted Woman Blues- Finished

 It's been almost two weeks since I pulled the initial proof of this block, but a car issue kept me from getting up to the Studio late last week.  That problem is resolved, so today I wanted to finish this thing.  I had my cutting tools in my bag already, and my book of jazz/blues discs, so there wasn't much to get ready.  Paper and ink were already there. 

My first task, while hands were still clean, was to tear a sheet of Rives Lightweight into two appropriate size pieces for today's printing. These were set aside.  Molly wasn't there, so I started with a disc, in this case one burned from a two disc set of the Essential Duke Ellington, in my case my favorites condensed down to a single disc (written about back in November of 2022), but that would get me through my first task.  I got out the block of the most recent in my Robert Johnson series, and started pulling off pieces of blue tape.  First I cut away some stray marks from the first proofing, things I didn't want to to print.  My figuring is that if these parts of the block took ink the first time, they might again.  Then I used my same tools to make some modifications to the image, all those lines on the back wall and the bed.  I did this by looking at both the block itself and that first proof from May 1st.  After making those changes, I decided to go ahead and print it.

Having been inked before, I figured this would go a little faster, and I guess it did.  Still, I had to re-ink some of it to get the solid black that I wanted in the places I wanted it.  Results can be seen below:

While this proof is not perfect, I'm going to declare this print done, and that includes the block.  I can leave the cutting tools at home next time.  I chose not to print the text this time, as I may not need it the next time I show it, and those lyrics were fine last time, and so no changes need to be made there today. Eventually I'll pull a full size proof with the lyrics, but that can wait for another time. 

While I had ink out on my palette table, I pulled another proof of my St Dwynwen print, to make up for the one that had colors smear last time.  Unlike my last attempt, I was more careful this time while printing it, and there was no shifting of the print on the block.  I still have to be careful coloring it, but I feel confident now in letting my collector know it is available for pick up.  Then with ink still out, I made a few needed repairs to my newest boardwalk print, things I noticed while coloring it last time.  Only then I could put away all the ink and clean up.  I put on a second disc from that book, a home burned best of Ella Fitzgerald, again my condensing of a two disc set of Gershwin songs (or at least I think it was- the originals are all in storage), written about back in August of 2021 if you want to know more.  It seemed to go along well with the first one.  The sprinkling rain I drove through on the way up was now a more steady light rain, but nothing I couldn't drive through.  So I went home.

Coincidence?

 We have a new pope now, Leo XIV.  First American to hold the job, a native of Chicago.  It was well covered in the news, and I did watch that.  They had a lot of time to fill, and we learned that he was an Augustinian, and a graduate of Villanova University, a math major they said.  Do I have some connection to all this?  Maybe.

Back in 1997 I was part of an exhibition organized by the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, in the Philadelphia area.  That exhibition was called Art and Religion: The Many Faces of Faith.  I submitted a bunch of my saint prints, relatively recent to that time, and they ended up accepting four, which ended up being the most works by any one artist.  In the end, it was decided to split the show, so two of my works ended up at the Balch, and two went to the other half of the show, which was held at Villanova University.  I did get to see the Balch show, but not the other.  However I did receive copies of the catalog, which I think had images of all four works.  One of the organizers came to visit me and check out more saints, and I think bought a few.  And later she wrote and sent me a poem, a series about artists and the works they created for the show.

Now, I have some familiarity with St Augustine, who I guess was either the founder or inspiration for the order named for him, of which our new pope is a member.  He was a doctor of the church, responsible for a lot of church policies, and I did a print about him as part of my Everyman series.  Unfortunately that print is one I don't have right now, the only existing copy in storage, the catalog from the show also in storage, and the block destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.  So no photo of the image here.  If I remember it correctly, the image for the print was a church building in the background, and in the foreground, in one point perspective, a street full of restaurants and bars, as Augustine had been somewhat of a hedonist in his younger days.  I think I remember a quote from one of his writings I found in his Butler's bio- "Lord grant me chastity, but not yet a while."  Meaning, prayer to become a better person, but he was still enjoying his bad behavior.  

Some recent research shows that Villanova was founded as an Augustinian college, the only such one apparently.  Knowing that, it may not be a surprise that a graduate of the school, as our new pope is, decided to join an order made up of the founders of that school.  Perhaps he was influenced by people he knew at the school.  If I ever run into him, I'll ask.  The next question I have is did the people at Villanova have anything to do with the fact that one of my prints that was chosen for the show and was shown at Villanova University was my St Augustine print?  I don't think so, since the show was organized by the Balch Institute, and had no mention of Villanova anywhere on the prospectus.  On the other hand, maybe it was a selling point for Villanova taking the show.  I don't know if anyone is still around who knew what happened, and while the Balch still exists, it merged with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania long ago, and they took over all their material.  Doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would be kept.  Then the big question would be did the pope ever see my work?  He's an alumnus of the school, so he may have been there at times, but I also know he had spent a lot of time in Peru doing mission work, to the extent that he has a citizenship there.  If so, it doesn't seem that it influenced him, as it appears he joined that order well before that exhibition.   In the end, it all seems to be just a coincidence. 

Boardwalk Days part 51

When I got up this morning, I expected I would go up to my Studio, but I had no idea what I would work on.  I might make a few changes and try a new print of my latest Robert Johnson print.  Or maybe I would start coloring the latest boardwalk print, sitting in my drying rack for a good month and a half, and thoroughly dry by now, safe to color.  By the time I left to go up there, I had decided to let the ink dry on my block for a little longer, and do the coloring.  Brought the coloring stuff with me.

No Molly when I got there, though I did see some evidence that she had been there since my last visit- the box set to radio and high volume.  I set it back to CD and put on a disc of music, in this case tropical brainstorm by Kirsty MacColl, an album that Molly would like if she was there, and one have written about before in March of 2020.  This will be my third time coloring this print, having done a test coloring on heavy paper, and a practice proof on the same Japanese paper more recently.  If this works out, it will be the first one for the edition, a final version.  One good thing about having done this before, is that most of the colors have been worked out, so fewer decisions to make.  Most of what I did today was copied directly from the one I did last month in case I needed it for the Open Studio or the documentary reception.  Because I don't need to work out color choices, it's not colored in exactly the same order as the last color proof, though I don't think I changed too much from the last one.  Below you can see what I got done today:

I expect to be back again in a few days, but I am still not sure what I will be working on.  When the disc I had on ended I went with another female artist, one I had there in the Studio- the Righteous Ones album from Toshi Reagon, with a write up back in August of 2021.  Most of what I did today was very similar, a lot of Buff Titanium and white, and colors made from thoset, so pieces of buildings, skin tones, sand, and the boardwalk itself.  No bold colors. It's a good start.  What I do next time is still undecided.

Something I Know a Little About

 Today my feed brought me a video about some woodcut related stuff.  It seems an institution recently acquired a bunch of drawings from Hokusai that were intended for a book, but that never happened, and the drawings were never turned into woodcut prints, which is what was typically done for publishing drawings, especially someone like Hokusai, who was known for woodcuts.  I already knew that Hokusai was an artist who drew (in fact, I think at one point in his later years he adopted the name, "The man who loves to draw"), and the woodcuts he is famous for had other people involved.  This was not unusual, both in eastern and western traditions, where usually the credited artist is the one who came up with the idea and drew the concept, but left the carving of the block, printing, and coloring, to specialists of those skills.   So the fact that these drawings were likely intended to be turned into woodcuts by someone else made sense.  Hokusai's significant  influence on both the Ukiyo-e style of woodcuts, and on European modernist painting has been covered elsewhere, so I don't need to state that here.

What I didn't know was that these drawings appear to be brush and ink (including ink wash) on Japanese paper, but I had probably not given it much thought.  But again, it makes some sense.  These are black and white drawings, not the color work we often associate with this artist, but that may have been the decision of whoever published the prints.  Some Japanese woodcuts were printed in the thousands, and colors chosen are known to vary widely.  Again, this is the norm in Japanese woodcut.  And maybe if these were turned into a book, they would have been, but we don't know now.  The new owner of this work had hired a professional woodcut printmaker to turn these drawings into black and white woodcuts, which they published as such for subscribers.  This video was about that process, and the woodcutter mentioned the challenge of deciding how to turn these ink drawings into woodcuts.  Relief printing is generally a digital process, in that shapes are on or off, black or the white of the paper. And these drawings included a lot of wash, or water diluted ink, which is one way of creating a gray tone, and left the cutter to decide how to turn the ink drawings into black and white carvings.  Couldn't ask the original artist what he intended- he's been dead for more than 150  years.

In a way this is something I have dealt with before, as sometimes I draw directly on the wood with brush and ink, including wash tones, and have to decide how to covert it all to black and white shapes.  One advantage I have is I am the artist, so whatever I decide is the correct answer.  This idea that the same artist does all the drawing, cutting, and printing on a piece is a modern concept, common today.  Of course, here are a few examples from my past.  

First we have a large figure piece from over a decade ago, where I drew the main figure from a model, first in pencil, and then with the same lighting, with brush and ink, including some wash.  I sometimes do this with head and figure pieces to give myself a drawing that more resembles what I do with charcoal, to loosen up my starting drawing.  

Later I added in background, drawn with pencil and black magic markers, and cut it all at once.  Here is the printed result:

In this piece I finished last year, I drew some from life and with a mirror, and some form an old charcoal drawing, but all parts using a brush and ink. Below is the original block:

And eventually I had to convert it all to relief carving, which can only be all or nothing. There are ways to get optical gray tones (in my prints these are alternate tones to shapes of black and white), but all I have to work with is black shapes and the white of the paper.  The clock on the wall disappeared, but the rest is what I drew with brush and ink, and had to interpret from wash tones to relief.  Below is the woodcut print that came from the brush and ink drawing:

Before I start a print, I have already decided if it will be black and white or color.  Prints that are intended for black and white (such as my prints from the Fourth of July, the supermarket series, or the recent Robert Johnson prints) contain more black shapes and optical gray sections, as part of my intended value balance.  Prints that are intended to be colored (such as my saints, Ecclesiastes prints, or the recent boardwalk print) have some black shapes, but there is a lot less black, as I expect to use shapes of color, and my experience as a painter tells me that colors have varying value, and these values can be used as part of the balance. 

My point is that sometimes deciding what to do with grays is just part of the process for a printmaker.  I have had to do it from time to time, and I survived it.  I have a lot of experience printing with black ink on white paper, and I know what that will give me, and maybe that informs me for the rest.

Kind Hearted Woman Blues part 5

 I had postponed this one to get the coloring on another print done first, but now it was time to proof this block and see where I am at.  Having torn an appropriate size piece of paper earlier, all that was left was to prepare some ink, which I did.  After putting down an extra thick layer of ink (this is a first proof and they always take more ink). I started hand rubbing my proof.  

The upper part looked good.  The lower part, which includes the text, was a bit tougher, though both areas required some re-inking.  Meanwhile, I had music on.  I had brought the smaller blues/jazz book of discs with me, and started with a home burned copy of the soundtrack from Naked Lunch, featuring Ornette Coleman soloing over the London Philharmonic, which I wrote about back in June of 2019.  When that ended it seemed like time for John Coltrane, but I just listened to that a few weeks ago, so I went with another classic from a horn player, 'Round About Midnight by Miles Davis, written about in August of 2019.  

But in the end it was done.  Because of a little smear along the top I wouldn't use this one for exhibition, but then again I was just doing this one as first proof and assumed some cutting would happen before I do the final version anyway.

In general I think it turned out fine.  My standing male figure doesn't particularly look like Humphrey Bogart, but then again, he doesn't have to.  For my purposes he will do as a dejected male figure, which is all I wanted in the first place.  My female figure looks like the original charcoal drawing, which is fine because that is what I expected there.  Those are unlikely to change in later proofs.  What I may look at is the background tones on the wall, and the sheet on the bed, but that can wait until the print is dried. Meanwhile, I put today's proof in the rack to dry, cleaned up, and eventually got on my way.

Still Yet More Studio Business

 This morning I had an email from Molly.  What had happened is yesterday we got a mass email regarding the installation of air conditioners in our windows and permission to do so.  She sent her reply as a "reply all", so I got a copy of her response, and then I got his.  Molly's email gave permission for this, but requested that the air conditioner not go into the window on the right, which right now is the only accessible one.  Her stuff is piled up in front of all the others.  I don't know if it possible to have an air conditioner put in our window (in the past we were told it wasn't) but right now it is impossible to get to the windows anyway, except the one she says no to.   And one of the other windows is still broken on the outside pane, which I reported to the office last year, and I verified the broken pane by going outside, as I couldn't get near it from the inside.  I mentioned all this to Jeanne, and told her I'd send Molly an email reminding her of what she needs to do if she wants an air conditioner put in.  No idea when any of this happens.  

That settled, I wanted to prepare some paper for proofing my new block.  Did that, put the tear bar away, then got on with the coloring.  I pulled my drawing board with the partially colored proofs of St Dwynwen taped to it, and found that the paper above it must have sagged a little, so one of the colors I did last week was now spread into another area. It was a paper colored area, so I couldn't go over it.  That meant this one wasn't usable for the edition or sale.  One was fine, so I colored that one, adding the blue and red necessary.  I went ahead and did both, even though I can't make it part of the edition, it can always be a color example of the print

The one on the right is the better one, which may not be noticeable in this photo.  So I still have one good copy to offer my potential collector if she comes before I have time to print another one.

Meanwhile I had the narrower piece of paper left over from the one I tore earlier, and ink leftover , too, and decided to just pull another copy of that saint.  Unfortunately, the paper shifted as I was printing it, and I know from experience that I can't get it back, so that was the end of that copy.  Too bad, because what I had done was looking pretty good.  That is the problem with there being so much empty paper in that piece.  Wet ink tends to help hold the paper in place, but there is so little ink here.  I'll have to be more careful next time.