Back to the presses

I have been working on a series of images taken of the underbelly of our newly removed jasmine bushes. I have begun 6 12x12" oil paintings (seen here in THIS post) and now I continue the study in ink.

I am working on several different plates so that they can then be printed using transparent inks. My hope is to create a multi-layered effect capturing the intertwining twigs and branches, the chaos that is the hidden treasure under each plant.

The black and white images are two separate images created and then burned onto the solar plate by exposing them in the sun. (To learn more about this process... visit Dan Weldon's book Printmaking in the Sun. He is the master and pioneer of the process).


Here is the test plate of the two images printed together. Using two different, transparent inks and printing the plates one on top of the other makes a lovely mess of branches. It's a beginning. One of the things I love most about printing is being able to manipulate the colors on the plates... many variations on a theme. It's so different than putting down marks with the brush and a fascinating way to study a beloved subject, over and over again in different media.

Im(press)ions @ Edward Cella

Im(press)ions: Contemporary/Modern Prints 1960-Today

At Edward Cella Art + Architecture
Shows through September 16

Santa Barbara Independent
Thursday, August 16, 2007
By Charles Donelan

While the ubiquity of reproductions of great modernist classics has made it easy to imagine that the late 20th century was dominated by large images and grand statements, connoisseurs know that some of the best work of even such familiar names as Jasper Johns and James Rosenquist was done in the more subtle but no less imaginative arena of the print studio. In Santa Barbara, the tradition of the painter/engraver is particularly vital due to the presence of Atelier Richard Tullis, an important print studio that has been located in the Funk Zone for more than 20 years. The quirky and high-caliber character of this particular show is largely due to the dense network of connections within the printmaking world, and the generosity of printers with the often unusual works they collect personally.

A big part of the appeal of Im(press)ions is seeing things that really deserve the label “genius.” Josef Albers was never more focused or successful with his iconic squares than in “Day and Night Study” (1963). It employs the strict formal conceit of squares within squares that is Albers’s artistic signature, and it investigates color in a way one would expect from the author of the widely respected Interaction of Color (also 1963). But spend some time with these squares and let the uncanny effect of their complex balance of shades between day and night work their magic. These four squares may be the most interesting landscape painting currently on view in Santa Barbara.

Nearby and on the same wall, Nicole Strasburg’s “Overpass Series” (2001), printed at Tullis, commands a similar response. Strasburg crops these views so the space behind the figure opens at the same time the surface achieves an admirably abstract overall flatness. Walton Ford’s wacky and more than a little kinky “Nila” (2000) is surely the most elephant-positive image I’ve seen, celebrating as it does the “eight excellences of [elephant] must.” It’s a great image — subversive, hilarious, and beautiful.

Finally, Richard Diebenkorn’s series of Five Aquatints with Drypoint Portfolio, Plates 5-1 is shown in its entirety, and demonstrates something essential about the role of printmaking in modern art at the same time that it reveals Diebenkorn’s exquisite mastery of multiple techniques. The Cella gallery has provided a useful glossary of printing terms for those who wish to know more about aquatint and drypoint.

Tree love... of another sort

I was roaming some of my favorite blogs while sipping my morning cup of coffee. Orange Beautiful always has fabulous finds for the creatively minded. Scrolling down was this beauty from Small Stump.

I immediately went to their SHOP on etsy and ordered this print when I discovered my first love was sold out.

I sent word that I was interested in ordering if there was a plan to make more of the little stumps and was directed to Jill and Lia's BLOG. Where, to my happiness, I see there are more stumps lined up to be finished. Lucky me.

What great finds on a sleepy Sunday morning.

Sundance

New paintings have just been listed on the Sundance website.

Root Obsession

After spending time clearing old jasmine plants from the front yard, making way for the new patio, I couldn't help taking pictures of the intricate underbelly of the plants. Beautiful intertwining webs of branches from the big ball of each plant. These are the beginning studies of those branches and experiments with different colors. I'm thinking in the end they will make fabulous multi-plate woodblock prints. Hmmmmm.

Tales of the City

Urban Myth: Visions of the City

On Exhibit in our Vollmer and Cooper Galleries
Sullivan Goss - An American Gallery
11 East Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara

August 11, 2007 through October 7, 2007

Opening Reception Saturday, August 11th, 200 from 5-7pm

Download the show catalog HERE

Forsythia intermedia

With a blank canvas that is our landscaping, I am obsessing over what to plants to choose. My primary goal is to find specimens that bloom in variable seasons ensuring a plethora of color year round.

Forsythia is a wonderful spring blooming shrub with many varieties. It grows both as a low lying shrub, as in the dwarf variety, or up to 10 feet in the Lynwood Gold. All specimens seem to be fast growing which is also desirable when you have nothing but bare soil everywhere!
















F. x intermedia spectabilis ‘Lynwood Gold’Forsythia's yellow flowers add a burst of color to the late winter or early spring landscapes. Branches can be picked in midwinter and forced into bloom indoors, making it one of the earliest of cut flowers.

The plants when given enough room to grow without pruning, they take on a graceful appearance.