Art in New Zealand

Christchurch, New Zealand was colorful and full of innovative art. The city responded to earthquake damage by putting up installations in areas of damage. 

I loved the trees and flowers in NZ, they were beautiful!

Carving at the NZ base (Scott Base) in Antarctica, maybe about half a mile from the American Base, McMurdo

All the buildings and vehicles are green at Scott Base!

Even their money is beautiful

Rebuilding of the church in Christchurch

Fjord Features

This image was done for our "mapping assignment". I like finding similarities between people and our environment, so I was inspired by the beauty of fjords (an aerial view), steep glacial carved valleys, and the permanence of these features, which are akin to the way our lives are carved by events and forever changed, or scarred. 

I decided to try polyester plate lithography in printmaking last semester. I have always loved the look of many litho prints, the way you can get carefully rendered images, like those of M.C. Escher.  Polyester plate is a newer technique, where you can "simply" just draw onto the plate with litho crayons, light and water fast markers (like micron, sharpie) and then put the polyester plate onto a hot plate to fuse the crayon or maker to it.  

The trickiest part is printing this plate. It works based on the opposing relationship of oil and water. Whatever you drew attracts the oil in the litho inks, so you sponge the plate withwater (and some gum arabic, won't go into) and then roll out your ink, and it should only stick where you drew! It should also  stick more or less depending on how dark you drew, so shading should come out. I had a ton of trouble with my light shading being removed, and had to re-draw the plate with the face on it (I had 3 plates, one for each color) 5 times, and the gradation still did not come out nearly as nicely as I would have liked!

Had to make a bunch!

Two color layers: some light brown and light blue

My drawing with litho crayon on the polyester plate

The result... Not quite what I drew

Result after re-drawing many times, about as good as I could get

Yay, kinda decent prints finally!

Ghost print of the face plate

Portraits of Threatened Species

Last semester is Printmaking 2, I chose to try monoprinting for my final project (we could chose any print technique, and any idea). I had gotten very frustrated doing polyester plate lithography for my previous project (will post about soon!) and wanted to try something new! 

Monoprinting can be refreshingly straightforward for a print technique, it would appeal to someone who loves to paint (like me!), however you of course get only one print out of each go! I only used black ink, so I simply rolled it over my piece of plexiglass then took it off to bring out whites! The ink was water based which means it can be more easily removed. I used Q-tips to draw each of these animals because for some reason that fluffy tip is perfect for picking the ink up (and they can be dipped in water to get a really nice white). It is tricky to not remove too much ink too soon!

I chose to do prints of four large North-American animals that have been in trouble recently: threatened, endangered, etc. I did them in portrait-style with their eyes meeting the viewers so it would seem both more confrontational and accusative, and also more akin to a portrait of a person. This is supposed to send the message that it is our fault these animals are struggling, and we should value the health of their species more highly (as we value our own species). 

The four animals I chose

Working on the bighorn sheep!

The wolf

The mountain lion in progress

Bison in progress 

Relief Printing multi-color

The second linoleum relief print we made was done multi-colored in what is called the "suicide" style because you cannot fix a mistake (un-carve something) in the very particular process. In order to make sure we understood how to go about this our professor had us sketch each color layer on a sheet of tracing paper.

These are some prep sketches of for my idea. The theme of this assignment was ephemeral, so I was thinking about the way we consider time. We often consider rock as permanent, while in reality it weathers and crumbles, as did the Old Man of the Mountain. 

It all depends on the timeline being considered, there is no one way to define a short or long amount of time; So, I compared the life of a human compared to the lifespan of a cliff.

I made 8 prints trying out different color combinations. Each color is one layer of linoleum that I carved away after printing.

 

We had the option of waxing some of our prints if we chose, after the ink completely dries. 

This print is my favorite

I tried printing the purple shadows and green trees before the blue background was dry enough (it takes closer to 2 days to try between ink layers) so the ink of the sky lifted up a bit.

Silent Spring Illustration

I had plans to go and watch The Joy Formidable perform in Boston today at the House of Blues however since all of Boston is currently on lockdown, and the show is postponed until June 20, I am just at Jackson's house for the day (we were going to take train into Boston from Portland). So I have the free time to post finally!

I have been taking printmaking this semester, it's a very time consuming class, but I really enjoy the challenges (..most of the time). 

After working on etching copper plates, we have been doing relief printing with linoleum. Next up.. screen printing! Hopefully it will be a bit of fresh air from all of the work of etching and then carving.

My sketch for the linocut.. I had to consider that everything would be carved and simply in chunks of black or white.

For the Honors College course I am taking we had a project/paper due recently. I chose one of the texts we read this summer, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, to do an artwork and short writing piece on. I loved this book, the powerful way it is written, and the message it presents. I chose printmaking as the medium because of the chemicals that are often used in certain processes.

I transfered my sketch onto my piece of 8" x 8" linoleum with carbon paper 

The "carving booth" I set up in my room, it actually worked out really well!

All carved away.. oof lots of work.. about 4-5 hours

This is the portion of my paper that described the meaning of my artwork.. it is lengthy but I wanted to explain this thoroughly!

            My artwork is inspired by Rachel Carson’s revolutionizing stance on the deception of the chemical companies. This piece is meant to be illustrative: capturing events that occurred and their consequences in a manner that those who do not understand the harm of pesticides may not have considered. A man in a suit whose face is concealed by a gas mask is confronting a young boy. The man is meant to represent an employee of the chemical industry who sells products such as DDT. His hidden face alienates the boy by hiding the identity of the man who seems to be playing the role of doctor. The suit indicates that he is not as this role implies, only a wealthy man looking for profit despite the expense. The gas mask is a cruel reminder that he is knowingly killing with DDT, deceiving the public while ensuring his own safety. The boy embodies generations to come, evoking sympathy from those who wish to keep the planet healthy for the sake of the children and grandchildren who will inherit it. Life springs from the boy: a tree sprouts from his back, flowers bloom in his hand, a bird tweets on his head, and a fish jumps from the stream flowing along his hips. This is meant to emphasize that the entire ecosystem will be affected as soon as we introduce chemicals into it. These synthetic substances will not lie dormant, they will transfer from the crops to the rivers, the insects, birds, animals, and inevitably to mankind. The man is directly injecting the boy with DDT, a challenge to people that this is essentially what we will be allowing to happen to our children if we accept the use of such toxic chemicals in our environment. Around the injection site the DDT spreads through the boys veins, appearing to be a system of black, polluted rivers on his arm. Leaves are already beginning to fall from the tree; the bird may not be joyously singing, but crying in pain and protest. The stream is already coursing with ribbons of black, the fish perhaps jumping from its beloved waters to escape; the flowers are uprooted from the soil, presented to the man by the boy as if to say ‘Look at the harm you are doing’. The color choice is simply meant to show the black and white rigidity of industrial power: you are either rich and important or poor and insignificant. The chemicals the man sells will suck the color from the world as they devastate nature. The boy’s healthy color is fading around the injection site, indicating that the bright pallor of skin will soon subside to white. The effect of the use of black through the printmaking processes is a reminder that in order to create art under this discipline, certain materials must be used. The same is true for the use of pesticides: but people must do everything in their power to prevent the most harmful chemicals from being distributed, and employ the safest methods of using them possible, despite cost or inconvenience.

Figure drawing - 2: Miscellaneous

One week we didn't go to figure drawing class during at night an instead met on a Saturday to attend the L.C. Bates Museum. It is this really cool natural history type small museum. It has all assortments of taxidermy animals and bugs, as well as sea creatures, shells, and rock. It was awesome to spend a day there drawing whatever we wanted!!

This is the subsequent drawing I did after being told to loosen up and draw in-> out. My teacher gave my some Mylar (smooth, non-absorbant) paper, some solvent (non-toxic paintbrush cleaner) and some swabs. She told me to explore and just draw. I loved this media!! I love how this deer turned out, it looks very cool in person.

My second Mylar + ink + solvent sketch of a caribou 

My second drawing. I was more carefully going about placing the birds and shading them. When my (amazing) figure drawing teacher came around to take a look she told me that I definitely have a good eye for drawing things correctly. Therefore, I DON'T NEED to out go about it so carefully, JUST DRAW! Don't contour or outline so much: work inside out and decide which edges to define or not.

My first drawing of a giant 4 ft clam shell and a huge swordfish caught by Ernest Hemingway(or at least belonging to him, not sure). I don't particularly like these sketches, I used conte, I do like the way I developed the shell, the the swordfish isn't workin for me

Practicing drawing hands.. I could only use pen, and I was supposed to start somewhere in the hand and work out towards the edges. Therefore, they can become warped, but they are interesting, and not too contoured.