Reviews behind me…

I am now officially an MFA candidate.  The 45 hour review at SCAD went very well, and I passed, and am on my way to pulling together the thesis show for the fall.

A friend at the woodshop helped me with the framing job which I am happy with.  I white washed all of the walnut.  The velum drawings are floating between two sheets of plexi glass to emphasize their translucency.  The cyanotypes are uncovered in shadowboxes.

The newest and most exciting piece in my work now is a large scale oil painting (6ft x 4ft) done with the visual language of my state cyanotypes.  I plan on moving in this direction to eventually do all 50 dates in this way.

a detail of the upper right corner:

Finally included was two globes and two panels from the journey series.

Fun with etching, sewing and cutting… updates

I have been working hard. Im sorry that its been a while since the last post.. Right now I am revisiting printmaking, which has been a load of work but fun, and getting things together for the big review in 2 weeks. New stuff, enjoy!

My first stab back at printmaking…

Stage one of my copper plates…etching remnants of the journey series.

For midterm I printed the first two panels of the journey series and presented them on sheets together.

I also took two of the squares from the vinyl drawings and had them enlarged then printed those 20″x20″.

I would really like to cute out each of the squares, mount, and display them like this:

I have machine sewn the path of travel with red thread through each of them. They are floating about an inch off the wall, on a wood block. Everyone else wanted them all together so I mocked some up to get the idea. The verdict is still out…

New and Blue

The Journey series is a project with a beginning and an end. It is a memory of a migration, an uprooting and adventure from coast to coast. When I moved to Georgia I drove my car, with all my possessions within 3000 miles from California. These are the trips you never forget. I have reproduced the map tracing point A home (Thousand Oaks, CA) to point B new home (Savannah, GA). This journey has been separated into 4 ½ in. squares each representing 15 minutes of driving. I am revisiting the journey in real time by allowing myself 15 to draw each square map onto a grid of vinyl. The purpose is to eventually expose this negative in the cyanotype process and present the move in a linear way… I hope you enjoy seeing the project in progress.

I have half of the squares drawn out and just sun printed them yesterday…. excited for installation when they are all done!

details:

midterm installation

I have been working on the United States…all 50 of them. Its taken some time but i have each state individually represented and I put them up together in an installation recently.

They filled the room… More detailed photos of each one to follow. These pen and ink paintings are done on vellum so that they also double as negatives for cyanotypes later.

Also working on flowin’ the Mississippi. Large scale cyano prints!

New Stuff

Finally. Feeling caught up.

Mississippi River Paths…Cyanotype and Pastel

I am doing all 50 states…working toward an installation of them all together.

Working on scupltural shading in negative with these Cycladic figures.

From the end of the Fall:

US lights at night

and detail

Process!

People seem so mystified by the Cyanotype/Sunprint/BluPrint process. I hope this helps clear up what it is exactly I do on a day when the sun is out to make everything that lovely blue.

1. the paper is painted ahead of time with a mix of 2 salt iron compounds (dont ask me the names, I didn;t do so hot in 10th grade chemistry..). It has to be done inside away from any UV light. It is sort of a highlighter green color when it goes down.

2. Then I place the drawing (on vellum or something like acitate over it, take it outside (my garage is the dark staging area) and quickly place it under glass on a table facing the sun.

3. The paper starts to turn bluish then grey. It takes anywhere from 10min in the summer to 30 now in the winter. Every place the I drew or painted on the drawing blocks the light from hitting the paper and keeps it from turning. So they act as negatives. Its ready to wash when the background is grey.

4. I pull it out from under the glass and away from the drawing and move it to the shade where I hose it off. This fancy beach chair of Claire’s does the job nicely…works as a screen. I have to get all of the green hosed away to stop the turning process. It starts to go back to blue as its drying. My favorite part is the washing…its like magic.

then it just dries and is ready to go!

All in a days work! (Although it has taken me 5 or 6 months to feel like I’m doing it right.) I get rather wet and the dog likes to take part in all of this too.

 

Catching you up to speed

I now have a wonderful new camera..ala Joshua Dildine and I can take pictures and keep up on this again.

Recap:

At the end of the fall I passed my 15 hour review with flying colors. Here is some of what I was doing at the close of the quarter:

Van Dyke Print, Vermont

This Process has the similar effect to Cyan prints but is Brown and more complicated. This is my first successful try.

Hand Stiched goodness

“Two continents in hand”

Sort of like He’s got the whole world in His hands…but Im not God.

This is a memory of North America in my left hand and Europe in my right. My first attempt at large scale Cyan printing on fabric. I exposed it in the street in front of my house with sand for shading. Its very big.

I was also in two shows towards the end of the fall quarter. They were a hit. I will include photos as soon as I get them out of Claire Teschel’s camera. Check out the progress she has made in her color tiles… This talented designer is doing some pretty nice Fine Art if you ask me.

working with the sun

I made it through midterms alive. Painting is going well. I have 4 of the 6 white hwy pieces done (pictures to follow as soon as I track down my camera).

I have also been doing more drawings and transfering them into cyanotype prints. Its a little tricky because I only have a few hours of great full sunlight a day and when its been raining that doesn’t do me any good either. They are looking cool though.

I think I might continue to explore this medium but try to branch out by changing the size or ground and adding watercolor or other elements with them. Vary the scale as well of course.

fibers final

Maps and blueprints : Exploration in cyanotyping

Josh and I have been experimenting with a chemical photo development process called cyanotype. It uses the indigo pigment as activated by the sun. Its been tricky but fun a full of unexpected outcomes.

Right now I am using my recent map drawings that were done on translucent vellum to burn an image on the treated paper.

I plan on doing a ‘blueprint’ of my imaginary tree house for the old oak tree of my childhood back home.

Im going to have to credit Sara a little for the prior treatment of this paper. I left a coffee pod on some watercolor paper I had out to stain it as a background for something. Its made some neat impressions from the circle shape. I grabbed it when I was treating surfaces in my ‘dark room’ (aka garage) and the coffee added something neat to the blue when printing.