Painting Dolls

I gave up my frenetic activity with the woodcuts for a day so that I could paint with Diana at her house. There is no way for me to take all the paraphenalia I need for printing to a different location. I had tried a woodcut of these dolls without total success, so decided to paint them instead. This isn't done, but I am quite enthralled with it the way it is and wanted to preserve it in case I spoil it as I go on and on. It looks like an explosion, or an apparition, or a bunch?, covey?, herd?, flock?, litter?, of angels. The photo is darker than the painting and the flash reflected off the top of the canvas, but it still is pretty much the way it actually is.

I have done a a few paintings of dolls and enjoy doing them provided there is something slightly sinister about them. All the dolls I have belonged to my mother. I can't help but associate them with her, and I know the tone of the painting is influenced by that.

Happily, I sold some paintings at the new gallery Lisa has opened. If I can go directly to the fuel company with the proceeds, I will stave off freezing for quite awhile.

More Woodcuts

Before I had my first cup of coffee this morning I was in the studio trying out the idea of making the sky darker in yesterday's picture. The first effort failed because of my haste and blaze approach. After Toni and I had played our recorders for a couple of hours, I set about trying again. This time I remembered I wanted a gray sky, not a blue one, and that I had to use stronger paper to withstand the hard rubbing against the block. I spent more time looking for some paper than I did doing the print, but I was happy with the effect. I cut out the shape of the sky and painted it gray, then inked up the plate, put the sky on the block, smeared it with glue, then put the white paper on top of that. Rubbing was hard because the paper was so stiff, but eventually the wooden door nob I use to transfer the print did the job.

The second one is an image I did years ago as a monoprint, called "Don't Cry." I've always liked it, and it was the first thing I tried to do when I took chisel to wood this time. I messed it up and went to easier subject matter. After my marathon re-indoctrination, though, I felt competent to try it again. I like this one, but I need to work more on the bottom of the image.

The studio looks like a cyclone hit it, but I have accomplished my goal. How much longer will this continue to amuse me?

Call Me Kathe Kollwitz

I persisted with my woodcut from yesterday and actually ended up liking it. Encouraged, I went on to try another one. This is the Unitarian Meeting House, backwards. I feel that I am experimenting and don't want to go to the trouble of reversing my images when I cut them. I still have a little more to go with this one. My attempt to put in the telephone pole and wires failed and now it looks like a crucifixion is about to take place on a white cross. Since I cut so much around the house, I think a little chine colle is in order to give the sky a gray color against the white building. Also I need to turn the Fisher-Price figure on the left into the church steeple it was meant to be.

It's fun to be doing something different, even if I do have sore fingers from pushing on my dull tools. I decided to mix up some black paint in order to give these that gloom and doom look that woodcuts all have. I shouldn't have hesitated to make the effort since it is so easy to mix blue and orange together. Most things aren't as much trouble as you thought they would be............unless you thought they were going to be easy.

Woodcuts

I've been having a little trouble finding things to do in my art life so I resorted to my trick of changing mediums. I think about printmaking often and wish I had a press available to me. When I was in school I loved all of my printmaking classes except lithography, which was too volatile. You could lose something you had spent a week doing in a flash because of some chemical process you didn't control correctly. Intaglio was interesting in that it was so labor intensive. I learned how to slow down and work in stages, building up the image over time and using a lot of different techniques to make textures. There was a lot of satisfaction in that, coupled with the anxiety of wondering if each run through the press or acid bath would ruin the image irrevocably. Now it is not so toxic as it used to be, and I probably wouldn't know how to do it.

Monoprint and block printing were, and are, my favorites. I had a wonderful teacher from Chicago for both of those. I can do relief printing without a press, and actually monoprint is possible, too. I have collected several pieces of wood from the construction next door that are quite suitable, though very hard. I have no ink, so used watersoluble oil paint instead. My tools are very dull and I don't know how to sharpen them..........it was always a problem for me. Anyway, armed with my enthusiasm for doing something different, I tackled these two pieces which are both about 5x7. I love the portrait, but as soon as I thought I had the process under control my thoughts turned immediately to making a salable image. Hence, the scene of Stonington's warf from a painting I did on sight probably thirty years ago. As is always the case, I lost my enthusiasm as soon as money came into my mind and the image is less than wonderful. I need to work on it more if I can muster the enthusiasm, make things clearer.

I am the original prude when it comes to prostituting my art..........how snotty.