Category: Monotypes

Doesn’t Follow

I have to say, I crack myself up a little when I do this stuff, and am not totally convinced that anyone else really gets the joke. This is a ghost of a fairly experimental picture that I called “Incomplete Still Life”, which contained the distressed table and distorted perspective of a floor, or maybe even a DiChirico-like plain. Weird enough.

Then, on a second drop I added a black squall in the upper left, possibly as a result of too much LSD in the younger day. I think it’s pretty clear this pic has no real coherence, unless you count the synaptic mysteries of a visual non sequitur. Which I do, so of course this is one of my favorite pieces.

It’s pretty rare that one of my favorites actually sells; this one did last year about this time. So I guess someone got the joke. Actually it was a couple that very often get my jokes, they have a large collection of my work.

I have a show scheduled in August, so I’ll need to get to work on some larger stuff after the holidays. I’ll be looking for something visually arbitrary and disconnected, yet vivid and very present tense. That’s the best I can explain a print like this.

Chine Colle Workshops

Folk and Jazz

Can’t believe how quickly the Monotype Workshop I’m teaching at the Art Students League of Denver is winding down! I also can’t believe the diversity of prints we continue to see there. Tuesday I did a quick demo on Chine Colle, a sort of collage technique where colored paper is glued onto the main ( usually white) paper during printing.

Two different approaches are seen here. Barbara (top) laid down a criss-cross pattern featuring the colors of the Italian flag ( turns out she’s from my hometown of Buffalo, NY) under a lively, folk art style rendering of a tree. The Chine Colle element adds emotional depth to an already strong graphic.

Beth ( below), has favored experimental modernism since the class began, as in her studio work. Mondrian would have disapproved of her jazzy diagonals and intersections, but our class meets only 3 blocks from Broadway Ave, so he would easily see the “Boogie Woogie” element here. Well balanced color, with blue and black triangles providing a steady beat for the orange, red and acid green.

I’m preparing a proposal for another, very similar workshop in the fall. I think we had a pretty good time, and I know of one participant, at least, who learned a lot ( the instructor). I’m also teaching a one-day workshop at the League Saturday, Aug. 7. You can register for either right here.

Want a free sample? Got that, too. Tomorrow at my show at Open Press ( 40 W. Bayaud), I’m doing a demo and gallery talk that’s open to the public, with drinks served. That’s 2 PM.

Was going to debut the long-awaited Squishtoid Manifesto there, but the monkeys working at my bank of used Remington Selectrics got a little grumbly when I brought that idea up. Then again, they’ve been working hard, and so have I. I might have to give us all the entire World Cup off.

Interiors Summer Art Market

The Cruelest Month?

I remember being bored at times back in January/February, when it too cold to go out, and I would prowl through the shelves looking for something new to read, or re-read. Now, in wet, gray April/May, with the workshop, and the show at Open Press (opening tonight!), boredom is not a problem. It’s been a bit frantic. Tonight, starting at 6 pm, it starts getting fun again. Crocus-pocus !

People who find yakking about art entertaining should try yakking about their own art. People are not afraid to be blunt, as in: “What were you thinking?” In many cases, I WASN’T THINKING AT ALL, which to me, is part of the point of art. In this picture, “Interior with Absence”, above, with its minimal structure and distressed imagery, I intended to evoke the fleeting feel of time past. Once highly anticipated events that are now dim in the memory. Do those people with the funny haircuts and our social security numbers even exist? And what of those who are gone? What creates their strange hold on the emotions?

Which brings us back to boredom, itself a form of absence-in-waiting. With two upcoming First Fridays and a Saturday demo, as well as the workshop and ASLD Summer Art Market, boredom isn’t likely to have much of a hold on me.

Landscape

Under the Big Sky

Above, a nice landscape by Ron Zito, from my monotype workshop Tuesdays at the Art Students League. Ron hasn’t done a whole lot of monotypes, but is an accomplished painter, and he understood immediately that gesture and atmospherics will get you a lot more when working with ink on paper, than detail. I wish I could show you the subtle texture he got in the sky better than this snapshot, I think it makes the print. We had some other nice landscapes, and I’ll post again soon, but several artists chose to work in abstract, and I’ve got a small portfolio of those here.

Chine Colle

Save the Orphans

Some “orphans” sit in my drawer at the studio because I don’t have time to figure out what to do with them. So I made time for a few on Monday. On the right is the first layer, from last fall some time. Then I did a second drop Monday. Now it’s finished, one small task I can cross off the list.

“Disassembled Sonata” 1/1, 21×15″

Chine Colle Interiors

More From Monday

Interior, 1/1, 15×21″

This is also from last Monday. Kind of a test run. It has pencil lines, because I love drawing and have wanted to include it in monotypes for a while. The different colored torn papery-looking elements are chine colle, loosely translated, that means “different colored torn papery process”. They are wheat-pasted on to the print by the pressure of the press (5,000 psi, as advertised in our mast head).
It’s not a particularly exciting image, but it certainly has me thinking about possibilities for other images.

Landscape Negative space

One Last Gray Day

I ‘ve done a larger, vertical version of the Ridgetop theme. While the photo isn’t that good, I’m going to move on to some other ideas, so I decided to wrap up the gray-on-gray/negative space thread for now. The best of these can be found here, in a portfolio with commentary. Be sure to click ” Become a Fan”, too. I’ll post newer work soon.

BTW, in case you out-of-towners are wondering, yes, it HAS been an unusually gray winter here.

Negative space

Gray Days

Post author By Hggns
Post date February 4, 2010
1 Comment on Gray Days

“Ridgetops”, Monotype, 15×21″

I’ll do a larger version Monday. I’ll lighten the far ridge, and adjust the scale and distance. I promised myself some more interiors, so I think that’ll be next. Nor have I done a “fun” Weekend-type post lately, so I’ll work up something of that nature.

Ghost

More Ghost Tales

I got very busy with a summer workshop proposal and a residency application, and almost forgot I promised to post a ghost of the last monotype. Here it is. I think you can see that the dark gray retains its graphic power more than the light gray.

I still have options, though. I can print another layer ( something in the foreground?), or I can hand tint the little ponds/ puddles to bring them out. Or I can just leave it alone. What do you think? I’ll probably work on it Monday.

Negative space

Sketchy Business

The year seems to be getting off to a good start. I wanted to do more sketching as a way of adding focus and unity of purpose, and I wanted to keep the images minimal and make greater use of negative space. Those things seem to be happening here, in the print I did Monday. It’s not in its final state; I’ll need to touch up a couple of areas.

It’s two drops, gray and dark gray, and it was trickier than it looks; I took my time. I had gotten a late start because we went over to help lift a press into a car bound for its new home up in the mountains. It’s a Squishtoid occupational hazard- every time someone buys a press, we wind up doing the grunt work. It’s not something my back especially looks forward to after 25 years of lifting 50 pound bales of potatoes, but it’s nice to see a printmaker living the dream, and she did buy us breakfast and bake us cookies!

I have a ghost of this which I’ll post tomorrow. For now, I’ll post the sketch to prove I’m not just talking the talk.