Channeling Mary Cassat?

Nearly Bedtime, 6"x4", drypoint engraving on paper

Mary Cassat was an American artist who lived in Paris in the late 19th century. She was a member of the Impressionists, a small group of now-famous artists who started a unique painting style in the late 1800's. Mary Cassat favored images of women in her art, often mothers with children. As I was engraving the drypoint plate for this print, my artist-friend BDP sneaked a peek and commented on the Cassat-like subject matter. Cassat was a huge influence on me when I first began painting with pastels. And Cassat was influenced by Japanese printmakers. Now I appreciate and understand that influence more than ever. It seems a natural progression from pastel painting to printmaking.

The people in the image are my sister-in-law and her first child, from a photograph I took only a couple of years ago.

This kind of drypoint was made from using a sharp pencil-shaped tool to scratch the image into a Lexan plate, then wiping the plate with ink and printing it onto damp paper. The damp paper loosens the paper's fibers and allows the paper to pick up the ink from the crevices in the plate as it goes through the etching press.

Learning to Mat and Frame

"Nest", monotype chine-colle on buff-colored paper, 12"x 12" framed

After four semesters of printmaking classes, three classes a week, I have a stack of art prints that's getting ridiculously large. It gives me a vague feeling of waste as they accumulate, ignored. So a while back I decided to actively attack the problem. I have given many away to family and friends, but trying to sell them concerns me because I don't want to lose any of the joy I feel doing it simply for the love of it, as a hobby.

Recently, though, an artist-friend invited me to join her and other artists exhibiting art at a charity auction/gala tomorrow night, selling our art for the cause. I think it's a good way to begin minimizing the stack of art. So I had to learn how to mat and frame, and make various other paper items describing the art. I thought getting ready for this event would be a simple matter, but let me tell you, it was harrrd! I had to rely heavily on my friends for their help and advice.

My brain is fatigued, but not as fatigued as my feet will be at the end of six hours tomorrow night. Yet I really do believe it will be a great experience for me personally, and I hope we'll all raise some funds for the charity.

Arf Arf! I framed old "Rascal" to match the "Nest".

Chine-collé drypoint engraving

I adore paper and have ever since I was a kid browsing stationery stores with my mom. So it just naturally follows that I'd go overboard when ordering pretty decorative papers for printmaking, for my Chine-collé prints. I already had several sheets of handmade paper, but not the thin, almost tissue-like paper preferred in Chine-collé printmaking (from the French meaning, loosely, "paper with glue").
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(Above is a 6"x9" drypoint chine-colle engraving of the Arles River,

printed on BFK Rives printmaking paper)

"Chine-collé" prints add a layer of color to what would usually be a black and white print. It might also add a texture and/or pattern; here the paper has stringy inclusions like the white streak seen in the foreground above the windows and the uneven sky. The paper is a blended two-tone, from yellow down to brown.

Here's the how-to: Brush glue all over one side of your Chine-collé paper, ink your engraved plate, and place it face up on the press bed. Place the Chine-collé paper on the inked plate, glue side up, then place the heavier printmaking paper on top of that, and print. When you pull the print, the tissue paper will have adhered to the printmaking paper, and the inked image will appear on the tissue paper! Got it?

Thanks to BDP for the photograph on which this print is based, and looking forward to "borrowing" photographs from Rome!