Printmaking

Travel broadens the mind.

Well, at least it gives you new sources of inspiration. I was fortunate to have a two week print making workshop at Frogman’s almost immediately after returning from Korea. Before I left, Jessica Meuninck Ganger gave a book workshop to get our creative juices flowing about how to use what we had learned, and recorded in one way or another, for a memento of Korea. My first foray was a maze book of watercolor illustrations based on my photos and sketch book.

Some images just keep returning- the stone guardians are my favorite image- I have sketched them, painted them, and scribe them as I rediscovered an old medium- scratchboard. Great for sketching and thinking in reverse for engraving– tiny lines and hatchmarks build up the white areas- unlike drawing in pencil- where the goal is the shadows rather than highlights.

So armed with all these images still fresh in my memory, my sketchbook and an iPad full of photos (0ver 12oo), I packed up the car and drove 9 hours to the University of South Dakota in Vermillion for Frogman’s Print Workshops.

The hardest part was deciding what to use for the first workshop- Plate Litho with Beauvais Lyon. One the one hand, I was overwhelmed at the size of the plate- 15 x20 inches is not my ideal size- I like to work small!! But on the other hand, I was having a hard time narrowing down my images to something I could see as a solo image at that size. Why do I always feel like I need to isolate an object and concentrate on a single image? So, since I couldn’t make up my mind– I used them all! Imagine that, me collaging images? The final image is my “Korean Fantasy”- a lithographic print that brings together all the stone objects that fascinated me: those stone guardians with their odd expressions, the stone tower markers with the piles of accrued pebbles indicating wishes, all lucky frogs carved along the riverways in Seoul and in Jeonju, the urn-like forms and inscribed cenotaphs in the cemeteries on the hillsides along the highways.

I was disappointed in the final print- I think the black ink was too strong and too opaque. I may print it again in a more transparent sepia or gray and hand color the image.

Plate litho created using rubbing crayon, Stone’s water based tusche, and litho crayons

Final image came out much darker than I expected…

The second week of workshops was HIPS engraving with Johanna Mueller. Finally back into a size I was comfortable with– 1 x 1 inch images. I completed several plates during the week. Some used the Jindo dog as a motif which became the image on the plate I created for the portfolio box. My first trade image was an amoeba, but I didn’t care for the image even after hand coloring 20 of them.

Final Plate

Plates and sketches for JIndo dog engraving images

Box layout for small print portfolio exchange with frog and dogs

Went back to my iPad and looked for more inspiration…

And there he was, all green and bug eyed and grumpy. My favorite print of the week used images from our last minute trip to the Seoul Aquarium to see my favorite critters- the amphibians. Had to make a small print of a frog for the portfolio exchange because we were, after all, at Frogman’s! Ribbit!