Printmaking 101: Reductive Serigraph

We’re thinking a lot about serigraphs (aka screenprints or silkscreens) right now as Michael Hagan’s exhibition “Doodle Digit Dot” goes up next week.  We’ll have images and more information about his printing process next month (for now, you can check out his blog entry on halftone screenprints to get an idea of his work and process).  In this entry we wanted to talk about another WPG artist, Andis Applewhite, and her interesting process of reductive serigraphs, which got a lot of questions during her July solo exhibition.

"Freedom 5" by Andis Applewhite, reductive serigraph

You can best understand the process by watching her videoof the process (click the link to see it).  But here’s the basic idea:  Andis uses a water-based resist on the screen.  A resist blocks the screen, so when the squeegee is pulled over it, the ink will not go through to the paper in area’s that have been painted.  Using a water-based resist means Andis can easily manipulate any marks she’s made–picking up areas with a wet sponge or moving the resist around to create a textured background.  However, using a water-based resist also means she must use an oil-based ink.  Oil based ink can be cleaned off the screen with mineral oi or turpentine (or other similar paint thinners) without affecting the water-based resist.  If she used a water-based ink and tried to rinse it off with water, the resist on the screen would come off, too!

Andis starts with a large area of color and prints that first.  In the video, it looks like she started with a black.  Then, she paints the resist on the screen.  The black will remain visible in these areas.  You can see in the video that her second printing of yellow was another large area, with only a few brush-strokes of resist leaving the black from the first layer visible.  Finally, in the video, you can see her painting another layer of resist.  Anywhere this resist doesn’t cover is then printed white.

You can see examples of Andis’ reductive serigraphs in the gallery.  You can also see Michael Hagan’s very different screenprinting process starting next week. Come in and compare the two for yourself!

Welcome Clare Winslow!

"Pearls and String" by Clare Winslow

WPG is pleased to welcome our newest artist member, Clare Winslow.  You may remember the print to the left from last year’s National Small Works Exhibition. Clare’s print “Hands Up” below, was also in Pyramid Atlantic’s annual exhibition at WPG this past April.

Clare is local to the DC area and actually started her intaglio printmaking in the studio of Terry Svat and Pauline Jakobsberg, two other WPG printmakers.  After taking several classes at the Corcoran, screenprinting became her technique of choice, saying:

"Handsup" by Clare Winslow

“Screenprinting enables me to synthesize a variety of creative selves: printmaker, photographer, draftsman, digital artist, and painter. It allows me to easily collage layers of imagery originating from drawings, photographs or scanned objects. And although screenprinting has been known to generate flat, hard-edged images, by way of new techniques, it can also produce prints with depth, texture, and painterly surfaces.”

You can see some of Clare’s prints on our website (click on her name, above), or, better yet, come in and see what we have in the gallery!

“Freedom” review in the Gazette

"Freedom 1" serigraph by Andis Applewhite

In this week’s Gazette (or in the link below) you can read the review by Claudia Rousseau of Andis Applewhite’s current solo exhibition, Freedom, on view at WPG through July 31.  Claudia calls Andis’ work “visually compelling, provocative and intelligent” on both “formal and conceptual levels.” Thanks, Claudia!

Show Pics: Freedom

Andis Applewhite’s new solo exhibition, Freedom, is up at the gallery!  The official opening is Saturday, July 2 (THIS Saturday!) 1-4 pm and the artist talk is Saturday, July 9, 1-4 pm.  If you’re looking for something artsy to do this holiday weekend we suggest this show (we’re open on the 3rd, closed on the 4th)  These prints look great in the photos and even better in person, stop by and check it out!

Print-y events for your summer calendar

A few things we want to share with you as you look forward to summer planning and summer shows!

"Shaded Rocks, West Texas" woodcut by Max-Karl Winkler

1. Max-Karl Winkler Artist Demo and Talk–This is TOMORROW, 1-4 pm.  Max will print a woodcut and also talk about the work he has in his current solo exhibition.  Demos are always a fun learning experience, we hope to see you there!

2. Will Barnet: 100 Years–now through June 26, Visarts at Rockville hosts an exhibition of privately collected prints by Will Barnet in celebration of his recent 100th birthday.

3. “Freedom” by Andis Applewhite–Our July solo exhibition is the perfect complement to Independence Day.  Andis’ recent work involves the manipulation of the very recognizable cultural icon, the American Flag.  This work is in the same context of Jasper

"Freedom 13" serigraph by Andis Applewhite

Johns, and Andis looks to continue the conversation he started by asking the question of what freedom really is.  This exhibition runs June 29-July 31, with an opening reception on the 2nd and artist talk on the 9th.

3.  Director’s Cut at the Old Print Gallery–this exhibition, which starts July 15, features woodcuts that have been hand-selected by OPG director Laura Graham.  These woodcuts range from the 15th century to contemporary prints.

Printmaking 101: Half-tone Screenprints

The following is from WPG artist Mike Hagan, who will have a solo exhibition in October of this year.

Half tones? Ewww!

When I mention my interest in half tones to other printmakers, their responses are sometimes similar to those heard from people who have stepped into something left by a pet on the sidewalk.  When responses are more conversational, they often reflect assumptions that, while understandable, are not quite true.  Typical responses are below.  I’ve coupled them with comments relating to my use of half tones in hand pulled printing.  I have also presented an image to illustrate various half tone methods.

Examples of half-tones, courtesy of Mike Hagan

1. “Half tones are used only in printing processes, especially in commercial printing processes.” Not really.  When drawing with a pen and black ink on white paper, how do you get tones between black and white?  After all, you can only work with black ink and white paper. Dots, stippling, scumbling, crosshatching, etc. That’s how you simulate values or tones between black and white. These same half tone strategies may also be used in explicit, regular, and precise ways in printmaking.  The underlying ideas, motivation, and approach for half tones are exactly the same for both drawing and printmaking. These common contexts have made me rethink the use of half tones in printmaking. If dots, stippling, scumbling, and cross hatching are not to be obscured in drawing, why should such techniques be obscured in printmaking? In fact, half tone printmaking techniques may be openly exploited for interesting textures, patterns, and tessellating elements in hand printed images.

2. “Half tones are primarily used in commercial offset lithography today.” No. The ubiquitous home or office inkjet printer also uses half tone technology, but with a twist. In commercial offset lithography half tones are evenly spaced ‑‑ but vary in size. In inkjet printing the dots are all the same size ‑‑ but vary in spacing.  Two different half tone solutions; two widely used printing processes.  The main point here: Either or both of these can be usefully simulated in a hand printed image.

3. “Half tones are useful only in machine printing.” Not really.  Nothing prohibits the hand printer from fully exploiting the use of half tones.  In fact, relative to commercial printing, where economic and technological constraints are important considerations, the hand printer can use half tones in much more flexible, efficient, robust, and strategic ways.  Various techniques can be mixed. The color space can be also be strategically reduced, i.e., simplified, to the minimum set of colors necessary to present desired hues and values.  And, because there are more choices for inks for hand printing, the color space is not as restrictive as in commercial printing.

4. “Half tones are dots.” Not always.  A dot is a useful half tone shape, but not all half tones are dots.  Half tones can be any shape ‑‑ lines, crosses, squares, or custom shapes.  The shape must be able to vary to accommodate the amount of ink desired over the space where a half tone pattern is employed.  Lines, e.g., can vary in thickness to indicate various values from light to dark.  Simple half tone patterns are best ‑‑ most of the time.  However, patterns can be quite complex and still serve as halftones. Such complexity provides creative opportunity in hand printing.

"Sheep (Going Abstract)" Screenprint by Mike Hagan

5. “Half tones are necessarily connected to the CMYK color space.” No. The commercial CMYK color space is by design very useful for printing many, many different images. The hand printer is instead looking for exactly the right colors for rendering a specific image.  As in painting, images and ideas suggest the colors to be used, not the other way around.  For example, when painting a lime, what painter would start with a CMYK pallet?  A more natural selection might be 3 pigments:  green, light green‑yellow, and dark green‑blue.  Likewise, a hand printer might be able to effectively print a half toned lime with two or three inks B none of which would be CMYK process colors.  The combination of custom inks and half tones allows for smooth gradations from light into shadow, e.g., from light green‑yellow into green, or from green into a dark green‑blue shadow.

Finally, I simply note that the ‘theory’ of half tones has parallels in information theory, statistics, and entropy.  Entropy?  Ewww!  Now, what have I stepped into?

A word on the Artist Pairings for Director’s Cut

Below is a quick introduction to each of the artist pairs in Director’s Cut.  A version of this write-up will be in our first-ever quarterly client newsletter, coming soon!

September’s Director’s Cut Exhibition features 44 prints by 10 different artists.  Techniques include intaglio, chine colle, collagraph, screenprint, mezzotint, and monotype.  These artists were grouped into pairs based upon complementary aspects of their work. 

From "Memory of Fortotten Things" by Kristen Necessary

Little Frock by Pauline Jakobsberg

Kristen Necessary and Pauline Jakobsberg both use memory and remnants of past lives for inspiration in their prints.  Kristen draws upon the abandoned houses in rural southwest Virginia, where she grew up, while Pauline uses clothing.  While Pauline has explored memory through her collagraph clothing prints for some time now, she recently began cutting these prints out, making them into unique art objects.  Both artists create work that is intimate, beautiful, and sometimes eerie.  Kristen lives in Iowa City, IA, and Pauline lives in the DC area. 

Busted by Andrew Kozlowski

Sea Free from Below by Fleming Jeffries

Andrew Kozlowski and Fleming Jeffries both create strange and fantastical scenes in their prints.  In this exhibition Andy’s two silkscreens (he does use a variety of media not included in this show) look like they could be the aftermath of one of Fleming’s landscapes.  Fleming’s landscapes use common elements, such as rock formations and rivers, but in a way that makes the space alien and uninhabitable, and almost self-destructive.  The debris floating in Andy’s alien space speaks to the world already destroyed. Andy lives in Richmond, VA and Fleming lives in The Plains, VA. 

Baseball by Jake Muirhead

Dispersion by Julie Niskanen

Jake Muirhead and Julie Niskanen were both included in this exhibition for their exceptional draftsmanship in their still life.  Still life is a genre centuries old, but Julie and Jake both breathe new life into it. Jake starts with a quick sketch on the copper plate and builds his image up with subsequent aquatints and etching, creating an image that is both free and precise at the same time.  After the time-consuming process of rocking a mezzotint completely black, Julie carefully scrapes the image back in.   Jake lives in the DC area and Julie lives in Raleigh, NC. 

Myopia 5 by Lindsay McCulloch

View from Key II by Yolanda Frederikse

Lindsay McCulloch and Yolanda Frederikse are both landscape artists, and both have worked with DC imagery (though not all of Lindsay’s prints in this show are of DC).  Their similarities stop there, but both their landscapes are still enjoyable.  Yolanda uses a unique water-color based monotype to depict everyday scenes at recognizable landmarks, while Lindsay uses silkscreen to draw the viewers’ attention to the design in everyday infrastructure.  Lindsay and Yolanda both live in the DC area.

Ain't by Mike Hagan

Say Something by Glenn Fry

Mike Hagan and Glenn Fry are both silkscreen artists.  Silkscreen is strongly tied to graphic design, which Glenn has a background in.  This influence can be seen in his poster size prints with bold but limited use of color and heavy reliance on text.  Mike’s prints have many references to pop culture, including Marilyn Monroe and comic books.  Both artists’ prints have an immediate aesthetic appeal, but deeper levels of meaning can be obtained from both of them upon a second look.  Both Mike and Glenn live in the DC area. 

Andis Applewhite Artist Talk January 9, 2010 Museum of Printing History Houston, Texas

My artist talk from this last January is posted on my blog as well as a video of me printing in my studio in 2007. I hope these videos help explain what my Syzygy and Obtuse Writing Series are about and give you a brief view into how I do them.

www.andisapplewhite.blogspot.com

To draw or not to draw…

Is drawing necessary for printmakers? Printmaking has always been considered one of the Graphic Arts, and drawing was long its primary act. But contemporary printmaking is wonderfully diverse, and today prints do not necessarily begin with drawing.

Consider Pauline Jakobsberg’s poignant Pen Pals, in which she superimposes an old family photo over the last letter from an uncle who died in battle. (The print is from her Legacy Series, commemorating the struggles of family members on both sides of the Atlantic during WWII.)

www.washingtonprintmakers.com

 

 

 

 

 

Or Martha Oatway’s monoprint, Palisades, which incorporates the imprint of an actual spray of leaves alongside images of tree branches printed from manipulated photographs using paper lithography.

www.marthaoatway.com

 

 

 

 

 

And Andis Applewhite derives the imagery for her elegant silkscreen abstractions – such as Duo A – from her explorations of the “relational, emotional and psychic aspects of ourselves.”

www.andisapplewhite.com

 

 

 

 

 

But prints drawn directly from life remain a powerful and important segment of printmaking. Paul Steinhardt, in his 2004 book on figure drawing, The Undressed Art, asserts that “we draw to see.” This doesn’t mean that we can’t see if we don’t draw. The act of making a visual record by hand is only one way to see more intensely. But it is a powerful way. And the resulting image – drawing or print – offers the viewer the privilege of seeing and understanding through the artist’s vision and skill.

Certainly this true of the work of both Lee Newman and Max-Karl Winkler.

Looking at Newman’s Sleeping Patient, we sense the elderly figure’s bulk beneath her shapeless clothes. We feel the way she is slumped into the wheelchair. And we can almost see her head nodding: the artist has left untouched the vestiges of his initial sketch of her head, when it was thrown back at a different angle. It is as though we stand at the artist’s shoulder; we watch as the crayon pushes and lifts, probing for structure and meaning.

 

 

 

 

 

In his drypoint, Homeless Man, Tenleytown, Newman has drawn directly into the metal plate which he will use to print, working with etching needle and roulette instead of crayon. The jagged marks and intense darks record the figure’s bulk and his unsettling stare as he emerges out of the dark that surrounds him. Newman has said that to draw – or even to look at – the elderly and homeless people whom he depicts so often, takes an act of courage. In spite, or perhaps because of this, he presents them to us with an objective compassion, and his images grant them dignity even in their unloveliness.

 

 

Max-Karl Winkler’s portraits of his friends and family are entirely different, rooted as they are in his affectionate engagement with his sitters. The artist’s recent solo show at Washington Printmakers Gallery featured portraits in drawing and woodcut. (See Winkler’s http://dcimprint.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/lessons-learned-from-a-solo-show/ .)

Winkler made the drawing of his son, Dagan, directly from life, which may account for the energy and immediacy of the image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is instructive to compare this drawing with the woodcut of Dagan. While clearly based on the drawing, the woodcut is in no sense a mere copy. Rather Winkler has taken the same material and transformed it into an independent work of art, powerful on its own terms. The artist has expanded the visual field to include his son’s torso and sensitive hands. By manipulating the relative weights of the lines in the hair, the turtleneck, and the heavy jacket, Winkler conveys – using only black and white – a sense of both color and texture. And although the intimacy of the drawing is gone, it is replaced by a greater solidity of presence. There is a majesty to this image, which depicts the ease and strength, as well as the vulnerability, of young manhood.

www.max-karl.com

www.washingtonprintmakers.com

 So while drawing is no longer a prerequisite for printmaking, it is clearly not obsolete. When the drawn line is as responsive and revealing as it is in the work of Newman and Winkler, the resulting image will always be worthwhile pondering.

Margaret Adams Parker
July, 2009

www.margaretadamsparker.com

 

 

 

 

 

Obtuse Writing

I am currently doing work for my show at WPG in September. The show will be my Obtuse Writing prints. It is an interesting process to develop a body of work. I find it easy to fall into a formula and pattern. I have to watch that. The hard part is to take each print by itself and let it develop into what it needs to be. I am also working on a larger piece of paper than I usually print which is a bit challenging at times. (44 x 30″) The photo shows the print and screen I am currently working on.

 

My Obtuse Writing prints probe communications that are both known and hidden within myself. These writings originate from using my dominate hand to ask questions and my non-dominate hand to answer. Surprisingly, this process unearths long forgotten and sometimes unknown, unconscious ruins. By printing the answers backward, the archetypal, symbolic nature of the now-known memories visually match the power of the communications.

 

Andis Applewhite