Monster Imposter
Finished it, with 20 minutes to spare before they kicked me out of the building: The evidence:



A good thing I always have my handy camera with me.

Here they are:



Infreekingcredible, if I do say so myself, tho maybe my color choices weren't the best. May use same image for another small edition. Had printed it with a double drop and in 2 colors, with different text as a sample, and really liked it, but for this exchange, was too difficult to do consistently in time I had available.

Of course, if I'd started work on it earlier...

The alert reader may note that the body of the monster (or the imposter) seems to be that of Kyle, a character from my Darkdevil County game -- and they would be correct. The head is that of another character you haven't seen yet named Galahad, who is indeed a monster, if you call a clone of bits and pieces of animals and people (plus some pinot noir) thrown in a monster.

One more project (plus taxes) to do, then will get back to the game. I mean it this time.

Labels: art, clones, Darkdevil County, etching, printmaking

- posted by Cynthia @ 3:28 PM | | | Link |

 
Not the Best Printing Day Ever
Just saying...

Tried to rush thru a print for the Iowa State U. Postcard Print Exchange but it didn't work so hot TWICE.

First time, I put the ground on too thinly and it fell off halfway thru the line etch. This was bad, since I had polished the surface and cleaned it to a mirror shine. It was perfect. Did I mention that the line disappeared too? It did. Hideous. Not worth reworking.

Ok, so transferred the image again to the other side of the plate (we're talking copper) which had (I thought) a faint aquatint, nothing awful.

Wrong. Image ended up looking murky and ugly, but the line etch was ok (30 minutes -- should have gone longer, I think).

Ok, so now everyone in the shop said I should just burnish out stuff here and there. Once again, I rushed. Should have done the organized thing like I usually do (with the mockup, the timings marked on the mockup, etc. etc. -- all very anal).

Didn't, so burnished out the wrong parts. My monster's face looks more like a clown's face.

May have one more go at it tomorrow, see if I can do something to the background.

Or not. Don't have any images to post at the moment, but will fess up later.

Labels: art, etching, printmaking

- posted by Cynthia @ 6:39 PM | | | Link |

 
SGC Exchange Prints: Gnomish Hills

"Gnomish Hills," by Cynthia King

Finally getting around to documenting the edition of 12 plus about 5 proofs and a few paper tests. One of the proofs is going to the Evanston Art Center benefit, so if you want one and didn't get it in your pack, that's the first place to look. (I'll do a second series of this plate at some point, as long as the aquatint holds up -- it's a zinc plate after all).

Here's the original mockup:



I reversed and rescaled the original drawing, printed it out, and worked out the tones with charcoal (yes, actual dirty-finger charcoal, not the computer stuff). For you non-printmakers, I had to reverse it, since you have to work with a reversed image on the etching plate itself.

It went in and out of the acid bath probably 6 times, stopping out at intervals from about 5 seconds to the final one (the doorways) about 4 minutes total.

For comparison, here's the original drawing as sucked into my Darkdevil County demo. (I'll probably go back into it with color at some point):



And here's the line etch. For some reason I added an extra mountain:



I copied the drawing at Kinkos and transfered it to the plate using a gum transfer, supplemented with graphite where the image was too light. All this manipulation skewed the image this way and that way a bit. Luckily, I'm not being graded on it.

Here it is at the show, top right on the 2nd display wall from the left (click to enlarge):



Here's the whole edition:



And what I looked like after finishing it. Oops, forgot the apron.

Labels: art, Darkdevil County, etching, printmaking, SGC, writing

- posted by Cynthia @ 10:39 AM | | | Link |