The Summer Of Screenprints

As I mentioned here a couple of posts ago, I’ve been taking lessons in screenprinting. The printmaking instructor at the school where I teach has been giving me lessons in her basement studio. I’ve learned quite a bit in a short period of time, and while I still have more to learn, I’ve been happy with what I’ve been doing so far.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about the silkscreening process, but I’ll share images and discuss them a little.

This is the first real print I made. It uses the drawing-fluid method of screenprinting. I was interested in printing over a background image, so I made a 50’s inspired design that had a lot of space. Not the best piece I’ve ever made, but it served it’s purpose. Here’s a test print on newsprint, without an image behind it:


You’ll notice it didn’t print real well-it’s uneven on the left side and along the top. This was a 13 X 18 inch print, and the screen I was using was 16 X 20. What I didn’t know at the time is that you should leave a larger border on the screen around the image you are trying to print. I kind of like the way this looks, however. The flaws in printing add visual interest.

Here’s a few more versions of this print. I printed 13 X 18 inch photos on my inkjet printer, and silkscreened the image on top of them.


This was printed on top of a photo of moss I took while on vacation last month. I like this one quite a bit.

This is printed onto a black and white photo of grass. It’s ok, but I like the other ones better.


This one is printed onto a photo of ferns I took when in Hawaii a couple of years ago.




I added a clear gloss coat over the black, which as you can see in the close up, was out of registration.

I made a second version on the same photo, and on this one, the gloss coat is better registered. It’s my favorite of these prints.


I’ve got several more prints to share, I’ll post more over the next few days.

F-Stop Magazine

The new issue of F-Stop Magazine is now online. They published two of my photos. To see them, click on the link, then on the group exhibit (titled 'Amusements'). My photos are in the bottom row, on the right hand side.
While you're there, take a look at the work by other photographers. There's some good work there.

Good News!

Today I received the following e-mail:

"Just a quick note to let you know, one or more of your images will be
included in the upcoming issue of F-Stop Magazine.
Thanks for contributing!"

F-Stop is a well done online photography magazine. I submitted some nighttime shots of a fair, and apparently they liked them. I'll post again once the issue with my photos goes online.

Still Working, Really!

As I wrote in my last post (was it really a month ago?) I am putting in some studio time this summer, but at a pretty slow rate. I was on vacation for a couple of weeks earlier this month, which I enjoyed greatly, although it kept me away from the studio. Now, I'm taking some lessons in screenprinting (which I somehow missed during my years in school), and hope to have something decent enough to post here soon. I've only made a couple of prints so far, but have more lessons Monday and Tuesday.


Meanwhile, here's a couple of small Van Dyke brown prints I made around the same time as the cyanotype on plywood experiments I posted about previously. These are vintage photographs that I scanned while dragging and sliding the prints around on the surface of the scanner. I made these scans over Spring break this year, while basically goofing around in my studio. I really wasn't planning on doing anything with these, but ended up liking some of them.


The photos came from two sources. One is a box of old photo portraits which has been sitting in a cabinet in the photo labs where I teach for as long as I've been working there (I'll be starting my ninth year this fall). I have no idea where they came from, and no one has ever expressed any interest in them, so I brought them home last year to keep them from getting ruined by splashing chemistry, and to do something creative with them.

The other source is more interesting. About a year ago, I bought a copy of the book LaPorte, Indiana. It was written by one of the people behind the wonderful Found Magazine. The book consists entirely of studio portraits dating from the 50's-70's from a portrait studio in LaPorte, IN. The book details finding dozens of boxes of these portraits in a diner in LaPorte, which now occupies the storefront formerly occupied by the photo studio. I was in LaPorte last fall doing volunteer work for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and made it a point to stop at that same diner. Sure enough, they still have dozens of boxes of old portraits, which they sell for 50 cents apiece. I bought a couple dozen of them.


These were meant to be test prints, just to test the negatives. My original goal was to try to print onto gold leaf, but my attempts were such a dismal failure that they went directly into the trash. I have a couple ideas to try along those lines, but haven't had time to follow through. I don't know if I'll stick with these images (Van Dyke brown on plywood could be interesting), but they might fit well with other ideas I'm exploring right now.

Recent Experiments

I’ve been having a relaxing summer, and probably not putting in as much studio time as I should be. I am working on a couple of different things, mainly trying to print alternative process photos on different surfaces. Not a lot of success yet, as you’ll see, but I’ve got more things to try.

Recently, I’ve been working at making cyanotype prints on pieces of plywood. I swear I’ve seen that done before, but can’t seem to find any examples in any of my books on alternative processes.

Here’s one of the images I’m working with, printed on paper. While it needs a little work, I can get a decent print fom the negative I printed. The image, by the way, is something I shot a couple of years ago. I have a bunch of old magazines from the 50’s in my studio, and this part of a page from one of them shot on a light table, so that the images on both sides of the page show.


For my first attempt attempt at cyanotype printing on plywood, I just coated the wood, let it dry (it seemed to take a long time to dry, similar to coating fabric for printing), and exposed the negative. As you can see below, it didn’t work out so well.


It looks a little underexposed (again, like printing on fabric, which I’ve found takes longer to expose than paper). It’s also difficult to read the image. Part of that is from is the roughness of the wood, so I sanded a piece, coated it (the sanded piece dried more quickly) and exposed it. I increased exposure by a couple of minutes as well.


This one came out better than the first one, but still not that great. While it’s easier to see the image here than on the first one I did, it’s nowhere close to where I want it. I’m going to try sizing the wood next, probably with gelatin. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Vacation Photos

I’ve got at least three different ideas I’m (kind of) working on right now, and will post some of them here once they’ve progressed to a point where it makes sense to show them.

In the meantime, here’s some pieces from a small project I just completed. I was asked (in a semi-joking way) to hang vacation photos in the showcases in the Fine and Performing Arts Center of Moraine Valley Community College, where I teach. I agreed, then had to come up with something interesting, so that the cases weren’t filled with a bunch of boring photos.
I decided to enlarge some panoramic or joined photo pieces, and print them on several pieces of 13 X 19 inch paper, and surround them with more typical scenic photos.

I’ve played with these ‘panoramas’ for several years, shooting them while on vacation, and sometimes close to home as well. I always do them quickly, and while I try to line things up, I don’t aim for perfection. I like the spatial distortions that occur, as well as the changes in exposure in the different individual photos that make up a panoramic image. The one at the top of this post was taken at Zion National Park in Utah in 2001. That one was shot using a film camera. The individual prints were pieced together then scanned.


This one was shot in The Netherlands in 2005. I like how the blades of the windmill are not lined up in the various shots that make this piece. The movement of the blades becomes evident as a result.


I shot this from the 15th floor balcony of a hotel room in San Francisco's Japantown in 2003. The overlapping photos seem to increase the busyness of the urban scene.

These vacation photos, along with several non panoramic shots, are currently on display in the showcases in the atrium of the Fine and Performing Arts Center of Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, IL. They should remain up for most of the summer.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is the second anniversary of this blog. My first post here was April 30, 2007.

I started this blog mainly to document a sabbatical I took during Fall semester, 2007. My school requires a fairly detailed post-sabbatical report, and I figured that a blog would serve that purpose well (which it did. My post report consisted mainly of a printout of the entire blog, which is why my personnel file in the Human Resources office fills two thick file folders).

After returning to work, I kept the blog running, mainly as a way to show new work as I made it, to share work in progress, and discuss art in general. I've done that, but have posted less frequently in recent months. There's a couple of reasons for that. One, I usually spend much less time in the studio during the school year than I do over the summer. Two, while I have a lot of ideas in my head, I haven't been making too much of them. School lets out soon, and I'm hoping to jump right into the studio (and yard work, riding my bike, cleaning the house, and all the other things that get ignored when I'm teaching).

I've also kind of forgotten about posting work by other artists that I like here. I really want to pick that up again (artists and art lovers: Send me links!).

So there we have it. I like the blog, and plan on keeping it running. If I get ambitious, I'll actually post here more than once a month. While waiting for posts here, you can always check out A Photo A Day, my other blog (which had it's one-year anniversary yesterday). There, you'll find a new photo nearly every day, along with a few comments about it.

One last thing: The image at the top of this post was something I found stapled to a telephone pole in Ann Arbor, MI, sometime in the late '80's. I've always thought it funny. I have no idea why it was there, or what the original source was.