Dinosaur Screen Prints

It took over six months, but I finally got back to Maryland to do some more screen printing with my friend and fellow artist C. W. Brooks. Last time I did studies of ammonites. This time, another group of creatures that died out in the K-T Extinction: dinosaurs. 

This is related to what I was working on last time because it is preparatory work for a new book project: The Nautilus and the Ammonite, a picture book based on this anonymously-written poem. It tells the tale of two friends who float, swim, and witness wonders together. Tragically, the ammonite passes away, leaving the nautilus to continue on alone, hoping someday to be reunited. It is a moving narrative that opens many avenues of thought that I long to explore through visual imagery. 

Back in December the idea of making a book was still a mere notion. But I applied for residencies to begin serious work on the project and was accepted to the Sunny Point Artist-In-Residence program through the Arts Center of Yates County.  For ten days in September, I'll be devoting nearly every waking moment to developing the story board and first finished imagery for this new book. Exciting, no? 


Anyway, clearly there must be some dinosaurs in this book, at least in the background, as it is set during the Cretaceous. Plus it will be a picture book and children love dinosaurs. Come to think of it, who doesn't love dinosaurs? 

Roar. 



This last photo is of Brooks cleaning up. The canvas hat keeps hair out of their screenprints.

Screen Print Studies of Nautilus and Ammonite

I spent another weekend with C. W. Brooks in their studio at the University of Maryland. This time they talked me into trying something new: screen printing! The process is so antithetical to what I normally do with woodcuts. No laborious carving, no grain to battle against or yield to, no splinters - bah.

Just to get started, I made two studies comparing one of my beloved, extinct ammonites to one of its living cousins, a nautilus. I want to eventually develop them into characters for a picture book (that's all I'm sharing about that right now.)

If I go back and try more screen printing, I'll probably attempt some landscapes. Those flat fields of color produced by the process just seem so far away. Another thought I had was to look at a lot of prints and wall hangings by Inuit artists because their unique ways of depicting figures in space lends itself well to screen printing.

Brooks was also screen printing. They look good in blue.

Two White Line Woodcuts and My Visit to Maryland

This weekend I visited my friend C.W. Brooks and we worked in their studio at the University of Maryland.

I'm in transition at the moment, having finished Cat and Owl In Love and new nudes for Naked In New Hope. I was gearing up to start my next book project, but after spending the weekend immersed in ART, I've decided I need to take some time to play around and see where it gets me.

I have been wanting to make more white line woodcuts. My last attempts were with my single-sheet book Four Cats last November.

This weekend I managed to draw, carve, and make proofs of images from two 4" x 4" blocks. The first is a self portrait, and the second is a spiral. They are a little rough. Instead of doing the traditional inking and immediate printing of each section, I spontaneously inked up the entire blocks first (which I enjoyed a great deal as I used to be a painter and often miss painting), let it dry, then wet the surface of the paper before printing and embossing with the wooden spoon. Unfortunately I failed to achieve even moisture, so the look is more soft than I wanted. I'm thinking I need to get heavier watercolor paper and soak it in a tray of water and then evenly blot it dry next time.

The third photo is the table where I did these works and Brooks doing their thing. (Brooks is not a printmaker per say, but you should really check out their Twitter feed.)