Fall in Woodcut

Trying to make sure I post all the artwork I haven't shown yet!

I had a lot of fun making a bunch of fall-themed woodcuts in printmaking last semester. I was inspired by the beautiful views hiking Katahdin, particularly the fade from warm red-oranges to yellow-greens of the leaves on all the birch trees. I mixed and matched the woodcuts to get a variety of prints. 

I would love to continue working with these blocks and make more prints!

Digital Art

I am taking a digital art course this semester and so far we have kept it pretty basic, good skills but ones I pretty much already know! These are the two project I have done so far (..over 6 weeks, the class moves a little slow)!

Both are inspired by my time in Antarctica of course! Above is simply a digital painting so I just used various brush tools and matched the colors to a photograph I had of this seal skull! 

Below is a vector image I created from a photograph of 3 Adelie penguins having a grand time

Mt. Katahdin in Winter

Since the beginning of this semester I decided I wanted to do the Mt. Katahdin winter hike through  Maine Bound, the outdoor adventure center on campus which offers awesome trips!

 I would have done it no matter what, but fortunately four of my friends joined me, as well as 5 great people from Maine Bound ! It was quite cold and very challenging, but incredible! 

I loved every minute except for about 40 on the way back from the summit because there were some serious winds making the temperatures at least -20. The area is so beautiful!

The group outside the lean-to we spent the night in before the climb

Tyler and Wil hiking up Abol slide - crampons and ice axes were handy! And helmets!

Cold at the top, face frozen so I got windburn

Excited to make it! Didn't hang out long though

Ryan on the hike back down, the summit already looking distant

Skiing before the trip

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