One of a Kind Watercolor available on my Etsy Store
Day 4 – January 4, 30 paintings in 30 days Challenge. Red Flowers
This is an original watercolor painting of red flowers, outlines in deep magenta and dotted with white. Yellow dots decorate the outside of the pedals as they float into opaque orange borders. In the month of January 2016 I will make one watercolor a day and offer to my Etsy collectors at night. Here are the details:
Small detail of painting
Size: 5″ x 7″
Paper: Arches Cold Press 300 gram watercolor paper
Watercolor: Schmincke Horadam Aquarell Watercolor
Date made: January 4, 2016
Original watercolor, only 1 made
Why so inexpensive? Because I want to make my work available to all to enjoy and this is a special project of making one new watercolor a day. I want each piece to find a new home at the end of each night.
Michelle and Tom Holland printing at Stonetrigger Press
Today was a great day at Stonetrigger Press, Poet Michelle Holland and Painter Tom Holland came to make prints. I met Michelle and Tom in March and we became fast friends. I had been wanting them to make a print with me and finally in between our athletic events, Michelle a runner and Tom a cyclist, we made the date.
Just two days ago I bought a gorgeous landscape painting from Tom and I was eager to see how he would treat the linoleum. Michelle, a poet studied art in college and had made prints in the past, so I was excited to see what she would do. Both, amazingly freehanded the drawings onto the blocks, Tom with a brush and ink, Michelle with marker. They carved and in no time, faster than anyone I have worked with, they were ready to print.
They each made an edition of 10 with 2 artist’s proofs. Here are photos of each of them signing their work.
Tom Holland signing his prints at Stonetrigger Press
Michelle Holland signing her prints
I am thrilled with the final prints, the two editions are meticulous. Printed onto Magnani Pescia Italian made paper with Gamblin Black Ink plus my secret ingredient. (no, I will not tell you, then it would not be secret), the prints are velvety smooth with rich black ink and a slight embossing.
Michelle Holland Linocut
Tom Holland Linocut
You can see more of Tom’s work by clicking this link. And if you are near Chimayo, NM you can make an appointment to see paintings in person.
Michelle’s books include the New Mexico Book Award winning collection, The Sound a Raven Makes, Tres Chicas Press 2007; and Chaos Theory, Sin Fronteras Press, 2009. Last week on Father’s Day I got to hear her read “Not a Sonnet” in Santa Fe, NM as part of the ReelFathers Project. It was incredibly moving. This video is not from last week, it was filmed as part of the Poetry Matters on New Mexico Culture Net.
We finished our day with a nice swim at Abiquiu Lake along with Conrad and Homer, my Labradors.
For more information on Tom and Michelle, or if you are interested in their prints you can contact them directly through Tom’s site.
I am very excited to share the latest addition to my Etsy Store, a demonstration of the cinch bags and how they are printed. You can even custom order your bag color and what linocut you want on it!
Each time I make a dog portrait I try something different. It may be in the size of the block, a profile vs. full body, changes of paper or changes of color. Each one is very personal. I began “Annie” last week. Annie, one of the sweetest dogs I have had the pleasure of meeting, passed away a couple of months ago. After looking through a number of photos of her, I kept melting in her side looking gaze.
There were a couple of things I knew I wanted. First, I wanted to show the pink and blue blanket, though there was only a sliver of it. Two, I wanted to have a separation between her brown and black. The only way I knew I could that is in a reduction linoleum block. This block got carved and printed 4 times over, pink, blue, brown, then black. Once all four layers were printed, I printed what remained of the block, which was quite a bit, onto 300 pound buff Rives BFK paper. In total I have 18 prints. Some were thrown away for begin off register, too dark or too light. I finished with an assortment 4 color prints on very thin Japanese paper, type types of Japanese paper.
I am beat. It was a super busy week. Spring is here and I had fences to mend, a race to run, orders to fill, grants to submit and groceries to buy. For those of you in the know, grocery shopping involves a 100 mile round trip, so it is time-consuming. But these are complaints, on the contrary, I am so lucky that I am able to do so much and have so much fun. As I await the cinch bags to come in, I am starting on a 22″ x 30″ linocut. I will shoot a photo of the daily carving process. In the meantime, there are 64 items in my Etsy store, so check it out!
Look who is at Stonetrigger Press! Lisa Studier, artist and cohort at Stonetrigger is here from NYC for 10 days to make some of her kick-ass multi-color reduction woodcuts.
After promising her warm weather and a reprieve from the punishing New York cold, she arrived just in time for a nice snow storm and some chilly winds. But that did not stop her from digging in and beginning her reduction woodcut chicken series. Not sure what a reduction print is? Well don’t worry. Lisa will be taking over the blog posts each day this week and showing you her printing progressions.
Lisa Studier’s chicken print carving
Step 1 after putting the drawing on the 12″ x 16″ Shina Plywood from McClains Printmaking Supply, Lisa spent the day carving.
Step 2: will be printing the first color, which she plans to do later today. I am sure she will share that with you.
The cool thing about reduction prints is that you only need one piece of wood or linoleum. The tough thing about it, is that each color needs to be registered perfectly. But I will stop here and let Lisa take over for the next 7 days.
Check out this gorgeous Horned Lizard Woodcut she made here on her last visit. Three of her prints are available on Etsy and once her chickens are done, they will be available but extremely limited, only 3 of each, so watch closely if you want one.
Original one of a kind watercolor, linocut, collage drawing
If variety is the spice of life, today is a spicy day. I have bearded dragon linocuts with red chine colle, bearded dragons linocuts with brown chine colle, bearded dragon in a watercolor desert fantasy landscape drawing. I have it all and they are each available on Etsy.
Framed bearded dragon linocut version 2, red chine colle
Watercolor Drawing is over a full 10″ x 6″
Linocut Image size is 6″ x 4″
Linocut paper size: 10″ x 8″
Paper: Rives BFK 100% cotton French mould made paper
framed bearded dragon linocut version 1, brown chine colle
Tomorrow I am being treated to a post birthday (October 20) celebration by relaxing at Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs. So there will not be any posts on Thursday, because I will be sitting in a 108 degree outdoor hot spring.
Narwhal, 10″ x 8″ linocut available on Stonetrigger Press Etsy $20.
It is a whale? Is it a unicorn? Did a unicorn mate with a whale? It is a narwhal, over 80,000 of them live in arctic waters. The males boasts a long tusk, which is actually a tooth, they sometimes have two tusks. The tusks have over 10 million nerve cells and can be 10 feet long. These are clearly sensitive creatures!
This is print number 40! It is hard to believe, 40 prints since January 1, and it is only February 17! This, is my favorite of all the prints. It is a reduction linocut. The first layer is printed with a rainbow roll of color, then part of the block get cut away and the narwhal appears. It is then printed a second time in the press, same sheet of paper. In fact I like this print so much, I am going to being a small artist book with a story about the narwhal. Are there any writers out there who may want to collaborate?
Narwhal linocut
Check out my Facebook page to see 9 steps of the printing process. It is pretty cool and a bit elaborate.
Each print is hand printed by the artist, me, Hilary Lorenz in my studio, StoneTrigger Press in New Mexico. Every Monday through Friday I carve and print in an edition of 10 a new linocut and post it here for $20. It is my Print of the Day Project and available on Etsy.
This is a detail of Buddy of Cockatiel. “Buddy” according to the The Bird Channel is the 3rd most popular name for a Cockatiel after, “Sunny” and “Sunshine.” I thought this one looked more like a “Buddy.”
Buddy, Linocut 10″ x 8″
Buddy looks awesome in this frame, his feather color gradually moves from orangey yellow to light yellow, to yellow grey and down to grey. The image is a little over 6.3″ x 4″ wide on 10″ x 8″ Rives BFK paper.
This linoleum block was super fun to carve. In fact I carved three blocks on Sunday, getting a head start to the week. It is going to be a really spectacular print week.
Look at these sweet “Buddy” prints all lined up and drying in the studio. They will be ready to find homes tomorrow. Ten are available on Etsy, as a print of the day project and still only $20.
I know it is spelled “Opossum”, but if we were in, say, Australia, it would be “possum” so I took liberties with it’s name. It is also a slightly different animal. I like saying “Oh, Possum!”. I have a funny, or creepy, depending on how you look at it possum story. It is another kid story.
Growing in Michigan there was a line of trees between our house and the neighbors, pine trees about 10 deep. We used to hide out in the trees. One day I found a grey, dead, hairless, possum. I went home and got a brown paper bag and two sandwich bags. I put the sandwich bags on my hands, I picked up the possum by the tail and put it in the paper bag. I brought it home and my first thought I would dump it on the kitchen floor for my mom to find. I placed the dead grey possum on the kitchen floor and even as a pre-teen, I realizes that was kind of creepy, so I put it right outside the door on our step. I then called to my mom to find it, laughing my ass off when she saw it.
Possum, 10″ x 8″
I can’t remember her reaction but I can remember that it was not as strong as I had wished and I regretted not leaving it on the kitchen floor.
It was not until after this stunt that I learned about, “playing possum,” and how there was potential of the possum not being dead when I had picked it up. Since I had never seen one “play possum” I doubt that playing possum looks like a dead possum, but I laugh at the fantasy that it was alive and that when I put it on the kitchen floor it would have run around the house. Now that would be funny!
Possums are up on Etsy, sorry the pictures are not as clean as they should be. My camera finally died so I used my cell phone camera. Looks like it is time to go shopping.
Have a great weekend and Happy Valentines Day. I’ll be back on Monday with lots of great prints!
I woke up last night to the sound of running water. I wanted to ignore it, but being winter, and being the high desert, it was a strange sound. I dragged myself out of bed to see that in fact it was raining. Now the weird thing is until I woke up, I was having a dream about a wishing well, an old fashion stone well with a hand crank attached to a bucket.
I went back to bed, but when I finally got up at 7:00, all I could think about was the stone well. I can remember vague stories and fantasies about stone wells when I was a kid, about the fantasy of escaping my home through some portal in a well, but not much beyond that.
I currently share a well, an underground well with a neighbor, and I always think about what it will take to drill my own well. The wishing well has kind of haunted me all day, before I carved, during my carving, and even now after I printed all 10 prints. Maybe it is premonition of some magnificent even about to unfold in my life. Now that would be something!
Wishing Well, 10″ x 8″
This quirky black printed linocut well is in an edition of 10. It is printed onto Rives BFK paper and available at my Etsy Store, Stonetrigger Press. All proceeds from the sale of this print, as well as all the others, will eventually go toward digging my own well.
Hilary Lorenz 