Abstract Painting

"Abstraction demands more from me than realism. Instead of reproducing something outside of me, now I go inward and use everything I've learned thus far in my life."
                                                                                                        ~ Susan Avishai

For those of you who have been on the edge of your seats waiting to hear what my next big adventure is: it's been delayed. Again. And yes, I'm frustrated. 

Moving on.

I took two workshops along with my classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts this summer. One of them was an abstract painting workshop taught by Kassem Amoudi (who also teaches at the Woodmere Art Museum, the Main Line Art Center, and the Wayne Art Center for those of you in the Philadelphia area who might be interested.) I've never tried abstract painting before and was excited to stretch myself in a different direction.

We started out with a blank canvas and were instructed to make random charcoal marks on it. We used acrylic gel medium to seal the charcoal so it would not smudge during the next steps.

Thin washes of color were randomly applied to areas of the charcoal.

Thicker areas of color were added.

I tried adding some splatters, with mixed results.

I was trying to bring out shapes that I saw in the painting as it developed.

Further refining the shapes and color blocks. I was encouraged to enhance the areas that looked like figures. I saw one area that looked like a dog, but once I developed it I didn't like it, so I covered it over.

At this point, Mr. Amoudi recommended I stop painting. Knowing that I tend to overwork things, I listened to him and put the paintbrushes down.

Considering this was my first experience with abstract painting, I'm actually pretty pleased with the result. It was exhausting though. Everyone in the workshop was mentally fried by the end of the day. I had never really thought about it before, but it is much harder to make something out of nothing than to paint what's in front of you. And it is especially hard to avoid making what we were all referring to as "bad motel art".

Here are a few artists that I really like whose work is either abstract or includes abstract elements: 
Brian Rutenberg 
Dafila Scott
Ewoud De Groot

I think I'd like to explore abstract painting further... after a long rest.

More Etching And A Little Woodblock Printing

"The true method of knowledge is experiment."
                                                 ~ William Blake

I think the worst thing about going away is when you come back and settle into your old life it's as if you never left. Except for all the unpacking we've yet to get through, being home is making me feel like this summer in Philadelphia never happened. Luckily, I've got all the new knowledge and artwork to prove to myself that it did happen.

During the last two weeks of my printmaking class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, we worked independently on whichever printmaking methods we wanted. I knew I wanted to experiment more with etching, particularly the inking process to see what different effects I could get. I played with multiple colors of ink and on some of the prints I took a Q-Tip and wiped away the ink in certain areas to try to get a highlight effect on the shells.

 

We also worked with woodblock printing, which I liked very much. I had assumed that carving into wood would be harder than carving into a linoleum block, but I was surprised at how easily it carved. I was also intrigued by the idea of brushing the wood with a wire brush to bring out and print the wood grain along with the carved image.

This barred owl image was a lot of fun to carve. I then inked the block with two different colors - black on the owl and a very dark blue on the sky. As you can see, the inks ended up looking pretty much the same. Overall though, I felt this woodblock print was successful enough to whet my interest in more experimenting at home.

Back in the Spring, I had hinted that there were multiple big adventures coming up for me. My time at PAFA this summer was just the start. Things are about to get really busy around here...

Adventures in Intaglio Printmaking

"I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life."
                                                                                                                  ~ Frank Stella

Finished print on drying rack

One of the classes I'm taking this summer is a printmaking class. Printmaking has always fascinated me, but I've only had the chance to dabble in linoleum block printing and that was a few years ago, so I jumped at the opportunity to explore printmaking more.

Currently we are making intaglio (pronounced in-tahl-yo) prints, an Italian word for etchings or engravings which in its essence means "to cut into". In a nutshell, an image is cut into a copper or zinc plate, ink is applied and then cleaned off, leaving a residue in the cut areas. When damp paper is placed on top of the plate and forced into these cut areas by the pressure of the printing press, the ink transfers onto the paper and creates a print of the image. If a plate is cut into by hand, the process is known as engraving. If the plate is cut into by acid, the process is known as etching. In my class, we're using acid! 

Here's the etching printmaking process, step-by-step. You may recognize the image I'm etching from a shell drawing in a previous post.

Ready to begin the etching process!

A jig is made to keep the plate from moving when I transfer the drawing onto it.

Rolling on the acid resist.

 The whole plate is covered in asphaltum; an acid-resistant substance made from tar.

A printmaking sandwich.

The asphaltum-covered plate is returned to the jig, a piece of plain newsprint is placed over the plate and the drawing is traced on top of that.

The first reveal.

The pressure of tracing the drawing transfers the asphaltum onto the newsprint, which gives you a rough idea of what the final print may look like. Wherever there is asphaltum on the plate, the acid can't reach the zinc and that part of the print will remain blank. Where the asphaltum is removed, the acid will eat away at the plate, creating an area where ink will collect. You have to be careful when handling the plate because it's very easy to accidentally touch the asphaltum and end up with a fingerprint etched into your plate!

The acid bath is in an enclosed booth with ventilation and glass shields.

I donned safety goggles, long thick protective gloves, and a big protective apron before heading to the acid bath. My plate luxuriated in the acid bath for about 6 or 7 minutes. Once the plate comes out of the acid bath, it is important to wash off any acid residue so you don't accidentally get any on yourself.

The post-bath plate

It doesn't look like anything has happened to the plate at this stage...

The squeaky-clean plate

...but when the asphaltum is cleaned off, you can see where the acid ate into the exposed parts of the plate, leaving an etched image.

Inked and ready

 Ink is applied all over the plate and then wiped off, only leaving ink in the etched lines.

The amount of pressure this press can generate is mind-boggling

The plate is placed image-side up on a printing press, damp paper is placed over the plate, and big thick felt and wool "blankets" are placed on top to protect both the plate and the roller when the whole thing is run through the press.

The big reveal!

The final step is the "reveal" - the moment you get to see what all that work produced! There's a buzz of excitement in my class every time someone pulls their print off the plate because you really don't know exactly what it's going to look like. My first print was a little too stark, so when I inked the plate the second time, I didn't clean it off quite so thoroughly and got a nice faint tone in the background. If I wanted to, I could also reapply asphaltum to the plate and add more details, run it through the acid bath and try printing it again.

I'm really enjoying intaglio printmaking, but obviously this is not something I'd do in my home studio. Somehow I don't think our landlord would be too keen on the whole acid bath thing.

Paintings and Drawings

"Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice reduces the imperfection."
                                                                                      ~ Toba Beta

Chambered nautilus study in colored pencil

My father-in-law's shell collection continues to inspire me. My enthusiasm has caught on and now he is searching the house for long-forgotten boxes of shells to give me. He found one box the other day that included a magnificent chambered nautilus shell.

The nautilus is a cephalopod like an octopus or a squid, however its tentacles do not have suckers. It is also the only cephalopod with a protective outer shell. It has changed very little over the millions of years that it has existed, so it is considered a "living fossil".

My nautilus shell model, I fear, was store-bought. To stem the decline in nautilus populations, some countries have banned the commercial trade of nautilus shells, but others have not. I will try my best to make lots of beautiful art with this shell, as I would never buy one myself.

Plate of Shells - 6 x 6 acrylic on canvas panel

Here's a little painting I did of an assortment of shells. The plate wasn't perfectly flat in the middle, so the shells sometimes rattled and shifted positions when I would walk around near the little table I had them perched on. The painting was really finished 2 hours before I put down the paintbrush, but I kept fussing with it and of course ended up overworking it. Oh well.

After 5 weeks of class, my first figure painting in oil is done.

I finished my figure painting in class at PAFA. We'll start another painting with a new model this week. I'm excited to try a new painting, but this week also marks the half-way point of our summer adventures. Nooooooooo! How can it be halfway over already!? I haven't even gotten my fill of East Coast pizza yet - and believe me, I've been trying!