Diner update

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to everyone.

I printed the 2nd color to the Diner print a couple days back and just haven't had time to post about it.  I did manage a post on Instagram, but nothing here due to how much time I've spent at work this past week.

The images above are both the inked up lino block (on the left) and the printed 2nd color over the initial yellow.  Almost all of the prints are dead on with their registration which is nice.  I think I may have figured out how to finally alter the ink with Tack Reducer so that it's not so darn...well...tacky.

The new yellows that I bought were both Canfield Traditional Relief Inks which I have never tried, but they both worked out real well and I'm happy with my purchase of them.  Will definitely be looking into getting more of them in the future.  They have a very nice consistency and I don't have to use as much Tack Reducer to get them to a point where they don't stick to the lino block.

 

Here is a picture of my setup for printing this block on my press.  Very happy with the Blick 999 press.  Doesn't pull on the paper like the 906 did which allows me to use the Ternes Burton registration pins that I had bought.  I was getting concerned that I had bought them for no reason when the pressure from the press would pull on the paper and cause the plastic registration tabs to stretch.

I've also completed the carving of the Diner block and I'm ready for the printing of the orange for the outside parts of the neon tubing.  I'm just waiting on the recently printed ink to dry up enough for the next printing.  I'm shooting for Thursday to print.

I've also been working with the La Rose Shop tracing still, but have come to an issue which I believe is simply something that is tricking my eyes.  The bricks on the side of the building appear to be going at different vertical angles and I've had to erase all the bricks and re-evaluate where they are and how they look....but, still they look to me as though they are going in weird angles.  I'll figure it out or just force them into the same direction with my pencil.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #reliefprinting #Diner #SomersetPA #carving #inking #CanfieldTraditionalReliefInks #Yellow #DeepYellow #updates

Diner printed and a new project started!

So after purchasing some new ink and hoping for the best with the yellow, I finally got to use my new press for the first time the other night.  I was very excited to actually get to use the press and can't wait to really get things rolling.  Above is the current printed color for the Diner print and I'm currently involved in carving away the yellow areas which is a little more tedious than I hoped, but I caught some areas that I probably would have missed which is good.

Shortly after printing the first color and cleaning off the linoleum, I grabbed my carving tools and got started working.  I really hope that I'll be able to print this coming Thursday, but that will all depend on whether or not the ink dries enough.

 

My progress so far has been pretty good and carving shouldn't take too much longer I think.  Maybe another hour or so of straight carving and I should be ready to print.

If not....then I can always finish the tracing portion of the La Rose Shop which is located in my hometown of Greensburg, PA.  This sign probably hasn't seen actual use in a couple decades and the building that it adorns is currently under renovation and I'm really, really hoping that the sign also gets fixed up and lit up again.

Either way...whether I get to print or not, I'll still have some kind of work to do on Thursday.  Feels good to get things moving again.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Diner #Yellow #carving #SummitDiner #SomersetPA #LaRoseShop #GreensburgPA #neon #sign #tracing

Quick Cafe update - Things are moving....

So here's a quick update as to the progress on the new Cafe tracing.  Much easier to see the details this time around which is very nice.  I've so far managed the entire word Cafe and some of the surrounding areas.  I'll need to go in either during this portion of the process or after the transfer and make sure that all appropriate areas are marked and the detail are better worked out.

Glad that this piece is moving along quicker than expected.  Should hopefully have the tracing done on Wednesday, but then again...I also work and have to go out at some point for some Christmas presents for my family...

Here's a detail image of the C and the A in the Cafe.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #neon #Cafe #Las Vegas

Been quiet recently..but...

With the coming holidays I've not had much time for printing or anything.  Even prepping new work is a little tough for the moment. 

I did go out and get a new pack of paper to print with and also ordered two new yellows for possible use with the Diner print as well as the appropriate blanket for the press so that I can print.

I decided to redo the Cafe print that failed on me earlier this year.  Only this time it's going to be considerably larger.  The last attempt was 9x12 and this one will be 15.5x19.5 (inches).

I've just started the tracing process of the image and due to the size this should take a couple days....glad to at least get around to doing something.

Hi-Land Dodge - 9x12 - 3 Color Reduction Linocut - Complete

After posting this morning hoping that I'd be able to finish this sometime today I decided to immediately follow it up with getting out the ink and applying to my glass desktop.  No turning back then.  

Took a little over an hour to print all 12.  As the surface of the block is carved away it becomes more difficult to stop the ink from accidentally marking areas where you don't want it.  I had been using paper towels to clean off the marks, but they tend to fray after a very short time so I dug out an old T-shirt instead and it worked very nicely.

Very excited to have finally managed to complete this piece even though and now it's time to get the new, large press ready to print the "Diner" piece that has been languishing in the void of time to work on anything.

Here is the color proof that I pulled to see what the last color would look like printed before moving onto prints that actually mattered.

This is the final piece (as also seen cropped in the first picture above).  There are some areas where I wish I had left some areas to be printed darker, but in the end, it doesn't really matter all that much and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Hi-Land #Dodge #Utah #ZionNationalPark #TradingPost #UT-9 #complete #print

So close and hopefully today!

Here is the final carving for the Dodge Hi-Land truck.  I'm still looking it over (for the 3rd time looking for areas that I may have missed), but this really seems to be it.  I was having issues figuring out that tire on the left of the block.  During the tracing and transfer stage I lost the definition to the bottom of it.  It was no where to be found on the drawings and wound up having to use photoshop and myself to try and make it work.

I think it looks pretty good now.  Next step is getting it printed out.  I have some errands I need to run today so hopefully I'll be able to print a little later today.  I'm really, really hoping that I'll have a final update later tonight or maybe even tomorrow.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Dodge #Hi-Land #Utah #ZionNationalPark #TradingPost

Hi-Land Dodge carving update - Almost there

 

Been working at carving away this block this week.  Took it to work for a couple days and though I don't normally get too far I'm definitely making some progress.  I'm doing a lot of comparisons to the reference image as a lot of what I was going to leave for black was actually supposed to be grey.  Will hopefully be ready for Saturday at some point so I can finally get this piece done (if not Saturday, then I'll force myself to do a Tuesday night printing).

Here's a small detail shot of the front of the truck.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Dodge #Hi-Land #Utah #ZionNationalPark #TradingPost

Hi-Land Dodge - 2nd color printed!

Managed to finally get a day off where I wasn't totally overwhelmed with things to do and got the 2nd color pass on the Hi-Land Dodge lino printed.  I'm very happy with the result so far and will start carving away the necessary areas so that I can get the next and final color printed soon.
  

 

These pics are a better representation of the color.  The sun came out while I was taking these pictures and helped to give me a better value scale.

The actual block is currently drying and I'm excited to get carving it tonight.  In my head, I'd like to print the final color by Saturday, but if I was being honest with myself I think I'd be lucky to just get it carved by Saturday.  Guess we'll see how far I can get with it tonight.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Dodge #Hi-Land #Utah #ZionNationalPark #UT-9 #TradingPost #ZionParkRV

Blick999 press finally in place!

After a little over a week sitting on a dolly I finally got my press up onto my new table.  Had my wife help me lift the thing so I didn't kill myself.  I'm very, very excited to have this up and ready to go...now all I need to is to come up with an appropriately sized project to do.  I'd like to do a larger print as my first one for this press, but since my rollers aren't very large I'm second guessing that thought.

My current projects (Diner and Hi-Land Dodge) are both under way on my older press.  I'm not sure that I want to switch presses with them since the other press is already set to a good pressure for the Hi-Land Dodge.   The Ternes Burton registration pins are already in place on another press bed for the Diner print so it can't really be moved to this press either.

I do have some ideas for this one though.  I have a Holiday Inn sign from the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati and a couple landscapes that I'm considering.  I recently saw a new reduction lino from an artist of a landscape and it blew me away so I've gotten excited about creating a landscape.  I also would like to do some urban-ish plein air styled lino.  I've always been a major fan of artists who do paintings of houses and streets of houses and on occasion see really good shots when the sun seems to be just right and the shadows are in the perfect places.

The way this week looks...Thursday should give me some time to print the next color for the Hi-Land Dodge lino.  I've been slowly going over the block looking for areas that I may have missed when I last carved it, but so far it looks okay.  I'm sure after I print I'll find several spots I missed, but hopefully they won't be anything major.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #etchingpress #Blick999 #DickBlick #updates

No printing today....but, I've been reworking where I work.

So my original plan was to have carved away the rest of the Hi-Land Dodge block and to be printing today.  That hasn't quite worked out.  My new etching press arrived Tuesday and it took me quite a while to get it inside by myself.  It weighs almost 200 pounds and the crate was another 30 or so.

I realized that where I planned to put it would not hold up under it's weight so I spent all of Wednesday driving around to various used/re-purposed furniture locations around me and in the end wound up at IKEA.  The table pictured above I found as I was getting ready to buy a much smaller table (for 2) - this is a 4 person table and was on clearance for $10 more.

Got it home and realized that I needed to do a complete room makeover in order to fit it anywhere into the room.  I literally spent all day Thursday playing switch-a-roo and making a massive disaster before finally starting to get things back together so there was no time for carving in the last couple days.  The press will take up the entire end of that table and since the table is pine, I'm probably going to have to buy some sort of wooden base for the press....otherwise it may sink into the soft pine surface.

I'm getting ready to do some carving today and I'll probably take the block with me to work tomorrow to work on it some more.

Carving away! Hi-Land Dodge

Been carving away the light grey areas of the Hi-Land Dodge block for the last couple days.  Some of the areas are very small and somewhat intricate.  I'm mostly trapped into using only the smallest cutter that I have.  In some areas I've been able to use a larger gouge to clear out some areas, but mostly it's a little here and a little there with a little more here and then there.

I think so far so good though.  It seems that my coloring different areas different colors has certainly helped me out, but I've come across some areas where it seems I missed marking them.  In a couple areas they should've been in the initial carving and should've been the paper color, but now they are the first light grey color.  Not a big issue really and no one will really know which ones were missed.  As I look at it now, I've already forgotten where the areas were.

 

In some of these areas I have to be very careful.  When carving, the lino has a tendency to break away if the area being left behind is very small.  I've made a very conscious effort to not have that happen and so far so good.  Hoping to have this piece ready to print by Saturday morning.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #dodge #truck #Hi-Land #Utah #ZionNationalPark #TradingPost #carving

Hi-Land Dodge update! 1st color printed!!

I would like to say that when I have issues printing that I come right back at it and try again.  That is not the case.  I usually get frustrated and focus on a singular piece of art and try and try and try to get it right.  It doesn't leave much time for the other pieces that I want to work on.

I decided this morning that I was going to change that and wanted to work with a color of ink that I knew would work for me.  I've never had issues with Gamblin White and Black so I decided to print the first light grey color to the Hi-Land Dodge linocut.

It makes me feel better to know that I've not lost my touch when inking up the linoleum.  I'm happy that all of these prints actually worked out for me and I've already started carving the next layer away!  In case anyone has forgotten, this piece is going to be Monochromatic - meaning that it's only goes to done in a single color, but have tints and shades of that color.  I decided I wanted nothing more than various shades and tints of grey.  Since it's my first vehicle I want to keep this as simple as possible...which is something I normally have a massive issue with.  Hopefully within a couple days I can get the areas marked in green carved away and get the next color printed.

(Singular image of the first color)

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #lightgrey #grey #gray #Hi-Land #Dodge #truck #Utah

Diner printing update

Started printing the yellow background for the Diner print yesterday morning.  Used the new Hansa Yellow that I bought and it's still very tacky and thick.  Decided to push forward anyhow and pulled 5 prints.  Since it's my first time printing an unmounted piece of lino I had to play around with the pressure.

My previous problems have made it easy to avoid printing, but I really wanted to get this thing rolling so I jumped right into it.  The thickness of the ink is still making it tough on me and the transfer of the ink wasn't always great.  I would play with the pressure as I went and found that if I wound it too tight than the registration tabs that I bought would pull and warp the holes that the pins went through.  If I loosened the pressure then the holes were fine, but the ink transfer was questionable.

I'm going to add some transparent ink to the yellow to try and change it's consistency and then apply more think to the plate than I was in hopes that both will cause a good transfer without having to keep the press too tight.

On another note...one of the registration tabs that I taped to the paper came off....sigh.  That one will now be my test print.  Ugh...haha.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Diner #neon #sign #yellow

American Sign Museum - Cincinnati, OH

My wife and I recently took some time to travel around to some cities near us that we'd never visited before.  We went to both Cincinnati, OH and Indianapolis, IN.

We discovered that Cincinnati had a sign museum and since I've been working on a lot of projects involving signs we decided to go and spend some time there.  Though it's a bit small the amount of signage and neon that they have is incredible.  They have older bulb signs, letters, neon and about any other types of signage that has been used.  Areas of the building and constructed to look like old streets and storefronts which is pretty cool and inside the windows are additional signs as well as old sign making materials.

It was a really nice location and if you happen to be in the Cincy area I would highly recommend stopping by to check it out.  Below are some pics that I took while on our visit.

Was hoping to get some printing started this week, but so far work has been fairly rough this week and I started a new work schedule.  So far this week I've already gotten 38 in 3 days and still have some more to work.  I've basically been going to work, sleeping and going back with no time in between to do any kind of art.  Going to shoot for Saturday to get some printing started and it'll probably be the Hi-Land Dodge piece.

 

 

  

 

 

#art #neon #signs #AmericanSignMuseum #HowardJohnsons #MailPouch #Firestone #Ohio #Cincinnati #vacation #HolidayInn

Hi-Land Dodge - 1st color carved

 

Though I was planning on printing the first color of the Diner print yesterday it didn't actually work out for me.  I wound up spending a good amount of time going over the Hi-Land Dodge identifying the color separations.

I used the green for the light grey and the blue for the medium grey.  Everything is black will be printed in either a very dark grey or black - I haven't decided on that yet, but I've found I'm not overly fond of straight black.

I had no intention of carving this piece, but figured I'd just do a little.  I got a little excited I guess and would up finishing the carving for the paper white.  I'm going to spend some time going back over it though so that I can double check that I did not miss anything.  I probably should've identified all the white areas with a color as well, but I didn't.  I left so much of the image the original battleship grey of the lino that it didn't really occur to me until I was already well into carving.

I'm going to need to prepare some paper and I want to give the entire block a wipe down with mineral spirits before printing.  I don't want any of the marker transferring to the paper and since my first color is marked in green there is a good chance of transfer.  Maybe next time I'll choose to mark the white of the paper, and each color from #2 onward and leave the first printed color un-markered.

Printing should occur for this as well as the Diner print sometime this week.  Though I will say that I'm rather nervous about altering the printing height of the press to print two different types of lino (mounted & unmounted).  My press does not have fantastic measurements and I hate changing where I have things set.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Sharpie #Dodge #ZionNationalPark #TradingPost #ZionParkRV

New updates and a new ink roller!!

Here is the current update on the Hi-Land Dodge lino that I started a couple weeks back.  Progress has been pretty slow, but I just took a week off to go on vacation otherwise this would have probably already had it's highlights carved out.

I will say that some of the areas are tough to decipher, but the detail in those section isn't overly important so I'm making small changes here and there depending on how it feels and looks against the photo.  Once I complete the black and blue areas I will go back in with another color to identify where the other 2 colors belong.

Also, the issues that I've been having with my ink have hopefully been fixed by a new can of yellow ink and the possible issues with the ink brayer (roller) have hopefully been fixed.  I contacted the manufacturer about the issues I was having and they offered to send me a new roller all the way from Germany!!  Super excited that it already showed up and now I'm ready to start printing again.  Hoping to test the new ink and roller out on the Diner print either later today or tomorrow morning.

I also stopped by Target the other day and found a bunch of "Back to School" Sharpies on clearance for 88 cents.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Abig #ABigBrayer #Sharpie #Dodge #ZionNationalPark #TradingPost #ZionParkRV

Hi-Land Dodge update

Hi everyone!  Here is the most recent update for the Hi-Land Dodge linocut.  I've been a bit quiet on here for a couple days as I've been in contact with the ink brayer company about possible issues that have arisen while using their brayer.  They've been kind enough to offer to send me a new brayer free of charge since mine is only a couple months old.

I have been working though on some things including preparing my printing bed for the Diner print as well as inking the transferred drawing of the Hi-Land Dodge.  For the first time ever I'm using multiple colors to help me identify which areas are to be carved at certain points.  I also hoping that this will cut down on missed carvings.  I bought green, blue and violet ultra-fine point Sharpies to use for this process.  Sharpies really seem to hold up well to the cleaning of the block multiple times.

 

Here are two images of the transfer process.  The left shows the traced drawing taped onto the lino block and placed inside the registration jig and I've laid a piece of plexi-glass on top of it.  I then place a printmaking blanket on top of the that and push it through the press.  The image on the right is what the block looks like after the previous step is complete.  The graphite has transferred over to the block and in this case...it is very faint.

I have to be very careful when I start to ink the block that I do not allow my hand to lay on any part of the transferred image otherwise it'll rub right off and I'll have to try and make things up as I go.  In the main image of this post you can see that I've worked a lot of the right edge as well as the top.  The sky area of this image allowed me a nice place to rest my hand.  I do put down a piece of tracing paper to prevent my skin oils from getting on the block.

Getting ready to go on a short vacation to visit some new cities that my wife and I have never been to.  I've scoped out some hopefully cool neon signs in these areas that I can hopefully use for future projects.

#art #printmaking #linocut #reductionlinocut #Dodge #Hi-Land #ZionNationalPark #ZionParkRV #UT-9