Printmaking Fantasy

We had some severe weather this week, and one of my classes was cancelled due to power outages. One of my students was kind enough to call me and tell me when she found out, so I didn't even have to drive all the way out to the school. This means I had a little time to carve this block, which is now essentially finished, though I may tweak it after proofing.

This is the photo I'm working from. It's my grandparents' property in central Illinois in springtime, aka "springtime in fairy woods." I love the colors, and I'm hoping to print them all from one block. I know I could have planned to register multiple blocks or do a reduction print to get the colors, but I think I'll get the feel I'm looking for by printing different colors from the block in one state. Maybe. I hope. I have several ideas for color experiments, one of which involves coating the block with acrylic medium first, so hopefully I won't ruin the block.

Yesterday morning, I was looking at the various techniques described on waterbasedinks.com, the website for Akua Kolor and Akua Intaglio, and there are so many printmaking techniques you can do at home, it makes my head swim. One day, I'd love to have a little studio and host workshops on various nontoxic printmaking techniques and show people how to set up a home studio. That would give me the perfect excuse to try everything!

I went to Christian's school's end-of-the-year picnic on Thursday, and the art teacher, who started out as a printmaker, was telling me how he used to clean his etching plates with benzene--with bare hands! Actually, when I first did etching, I remember standing over the mineral spirits bath scrubbing all the ink out of the grooves in my etching plate, also soaking it all up with bare hands. I fell in love with printmaking from the beginning and really threw myself into it for about a year and a half of college, but in that short time, I had already developed a sensitivity to the various chemicals and such. By the end of that period, I was wearing gloves and a goofy gas mask just to enter the studio, and I thought I was done with printmaking. Then I spent a month in Brittany, France at the Pont Aven School of Art, and got really into doing monotypes with oil paint using these zinc roofing squares that my teacher had brought in her suitcase from the U.S. Printmaking and I were friends again :) Over the past few years, I've become aware of more and more nontraditional printmaking techniques, or nontoxic variations on the traditional methods, and it's really pretty amazing. The possibilities are endless. So there you go--the premise for my fantasy studio!

Yesterday, Owen and I went to the baseball field to run around. We discovered mud, dandelions, and dragonflies.