Sunday, August 26, 2007

Experimental gocco print, day 2

This will layer over what I printed yesterday, on the bottom. I smeared the ink on with a palette knife and swished the tip of the knife around to get the patterns:



Here I'm about to print the top portion, and again, I've swished the palette knife tip around in the ink (this is another thing that I've been wanting to try, to just create patterns this way):



Here is what it looks like printed. The white parts slowly disappeared as I printed, although it didn't completely disappear. I suppose I could open it up and swish it around every 2-3 prints if I wanted the white parts to remain really visible. I could also see using this method to make a screen printed "monoprint", just draw directly into the ink with the palette knife.



Here's what it looks like printed. This is as far as I got this afternoon. Had to think about what I'm going to do next at this point.



Here's one version that's too dark, and another version that's too light:



So far, I've used just 2 old screens, the yellow screen from Dentistry and the open screen. Spent the evening mocking up what I'm going to do next. I had found this drawing of a toy horse in my sketch book from a couple of years ago and wanted to use it. As I was making the print, however, I didn't really keep it in mind, which is ok. I just wanted to play and see what happens. Right now, this is how I'm thinking I'd incorporate the image of the horse --

I had found the horse under "mysterious circumstances" -- it just showed up, inside the house, one day. We hadn't had any company, and certainly nobody with kids. I found it just sitting around. I wasn't digging around in the basement or some closet, it was just there. I don't remember where it was now, but I remember thinking how odd it was that it was just sitting there. I checked around the house and didn't find anything missing, so I doubt there was an "intruder" of any sort.

So, a mystery horse that just showed up. I thought of the Trojan horse, and how some types of computer viruses are called Trojan horses. I love electronic microscope images of microbes and such, and the shapes in this print is reminding me of those. I also like the image of teeth (although human teeth) in the portion that was from Dentistry -- how gift horse and teeth go together -- although that was a complete coincidence.

Here's the mock-up:

4 comments:

gl. said...

ooo, i like where this is going!

Anonymous said...

Love this!! Fascinating and inspiring to 'watch' you play. Can't wait to see what's next!

I am finally de-lurking to say a friendly 'hello-bonjour!'. I was tickled to see you visit my little corner of the web - drop by anytime! As usual I will probably be visiting your studio diary obsessively to read about all the wonderful things you are creating...hmmmmm...now who's the creepy one? (hee hee!)

Thank you again for the lovely hospitality while I was in Portland - I do hope we can stay in touch and meet many more times in future.

Oooooooh NICE muscles by the way! You GO girl!

fingerstothebone said...

gl -- Thanks. Hope you're liking the actual progress as well.

Anjali -- Bonjour! You bet I'll be keeping an eye on what you're up to and staying in touch. Glad to have had the chance to show you a bit or Oregon, and hope you and Gerry will come back for more.

gl. said...

*waves* hi, anjali!