I’m having the hardest time coming up with a title for this piece. I still don’t know if this should be considered complete as well. The urge to tinker and fix mistakes still tempt me. I’m going to reprint this project because the possibilities that collage brings gives me the capability to work multiple compositions. I’m hoping the next version I create might be used for the upcoming show. Still not sure what will be needed yet, but the excitement has not worn off.

Yay.

Projects are starting to snowball. Last year I was struggling to put together ideas, while this year there’s too many to juggle. I have two books waiting to be printed, a linoleum to carve and print, an eight-foot tall monster to silkscreen, as well as various sketches to develop and blocks to reprint. Guh, too much!

P.S. Don’t forget the poll from last post, I still need more input!

In retrospect, I don’t think I would have had the determination if it weren’t for my mentor constantly supporting and challenging me. MCAD was the only school I researched into that had that unique learning experience attached to the curriculum. The school has it so that every graduate is partnered up with practicing artist in the area (and it’s a very artistic city, so lots of good choices).

Instead of going for a printmaking or even illustration mentor, I chose to be partnered up with Laura Stack, a painting and drawing mentor. She works with mixed media and although her type of work is fairly unrelated to my own (which is a good thing for me), it still has a graphic sensibility that I found in my own work. She’ll often bring ideas or critiques to meetings that often does not get brought up in my group critiques or with other teachers/visiting artists. Laura also helps me try to cope and with the school’s need to categorize myself into either fine arts or illustration, an issue she had to deal with in her own graduate school.

Some of my faves from her work:

Organic! Go!

-Megan

I wasn’t going to bother with a “how-to” to wintergreen oil transfers but for whatever reason, I keep getting a lot of hits for this topic. I’m not complaining, but I feel bad that fresh visitors end up with not much insight on the technique. What I’ll do is give advice on the subject and redirection to other sites that handle the how-to with better attention than I would bother.

I’ve only done transfers a couple times back in my first semester of school. I enjoy the technique, but I found that I have better means of getting what I want with my art projects. Still, it holds wonderful possibilities and can be done at home. I imagine I might go back to it after I graduate and perfect what I know.

*First things first: solvents are toxic. That includes wintergreen oil. Don’t let the pleasant smell fool you. Use a well ventilated space, gloves, and follow proper guides for handling any solvents and disposal of excess materials (common sense studio practices). Either become well informed through credible websites or have a book that can enlight you. I keep an art & safety handbook around.

*I often dilute my wintergreen oil with rubbing alcohol. Wintergreen oil can be expensive. Rubbing alcohol can help stretch it for what it’s worth. I use a press bed to transfer my work, so I cannot verify if this mixtures will lessen the effectiveness of hand printing. You’ll have to experiment.

*I apply the solvent with a brush on a xerox. I soak the copied image and then apply the paper I want to transfer it to. I run it through the press bed with some newsprint to soak up the excess oil.

*Obviously it can take some experimentation. I did the transfer (with just the figure) and drew vulture bunnies around it. There were parts I like and didn’t like with the add-ons. With some photoshopping, I printed out another image to transfer…

Then I added some red/white inks and washes. Bam!  A mixed media project with a transfer technique!

*I have not transferred an image by hand, but for those who lack a press bed (obviously expensive even for table top varieties), a baren or a burnisher is suppose to do the trick. I’d recommend the baren, that tool was made for hand printing woodcut relief prints.

*Some helpful links:

1.) More how-to/tips from RISDpedia.

2.) Drawn! has a nice example of a solvent transfer on moleskine.

3.) Places to possibly find wintergreen oil.

I think that’s comprehensive enough on my side. For the most part, I think what you can do with transfers can be done with a ink/laser printer or other (better) printing techniques. It does have the advantage when you apply it to fabrics. One of the graduates in my program hand printed on a six-eight foot sheet of voile. Also, sometimes the effect of what transfers and doesn’t can prove to have a nice aesthetic. Some of my transfers would have a negative brush strokes where the oil barely touch the xerox and didn’t transfer. It looked rather nice (see first image), but it can be hard to purposely attain that.

-Megan

I’m trying to submit to a group show that involves family artists with either separate or collaborative work. I’ve submitted the mix media piece of my sister and I hand colored one of her silkscreens she gave me as a collaboration. This is mostly so that she would be saved a trip to the post office, as I’m sure she’ll thank me later. Anyway, I thought the pieces go great together thematically and when I did my drawing, it was bouncing off the ideas she had for her series. What sucked was that the first piece I colored was a dirty print, but for the life of me, I was determined to make it work. I cut around the frame like my sister did in her original piece, tried to adhere it to illustration board. I used old spray adhesive and it created this huge mess and the glue got in part of the clean illustration board, which then got dirty as I used my hands to rub it out.

Blarg.

Lesson learned: I’m not using spray adhesive again. I don’t trust myself with it anymore. From now on I’m sticking with PVA glue.

This whole mess of a situation worked out for my benefit however. I found another (cleaner) print in my portfolio and colored that with quick and easy with Prismacolor markers, graphite, white pencil, and charcoal. Voila! Better version in half the time and trouble.

Final, prettier version here:

Despite the grief, it was actually nice that I went through hand coloring her print, because now they both fit together formally (her handcolored version was with more blues/purples). Now, if only I did these projects right the first time.

I have another post coming up soon! Probably tomorrow or Wednesday. It’s another book. I’m excited. Seeya then.

-Megan

I got around to this a day later. I didn’t buy paper in time to print. Whoops.

I printed for most of my afternoon. This is was how I spent all of week 9 on, carving and prepping my print. I made a proof print for my mentor meeting on Saturday.

The ink was all old and gummy, which left odd spots. Seeing it printed out, I also saw that the pinkie needed to be carved out more. It just kind of blends with the sweater and hair. After fixing those on Sat.-Sun. I came in today and printed.

I was quite rusty with printing. My first few prints kept coming up grayish and splotchy. I had to experiment with the printing press’s pressure and the amount of ink applied. I printed more than I would have liked, but I got 2-3 good prints to use. It’s hard to notice with these tiny photos, but all the tiny cuts look amazingly detailed in person.

Another thing I was doing this week was attempting a photo transfer. The school’s artstore was out of the blender markers all last week, so I used some of the print studio’s acetone. It came up with hit-or-miss results. When the blender markers finally came in to the school store, I tested them today and got less pleasing results. Both methods give me headaches, so I’m off to test the wintergreen oil tonight. I don’t know if it’s my impatience, the application methods, or the paper, but it’s just not working out like I would expect. Here’s the best transfer that I drew on top of.

The hand didn’t come up at all and I should have left it, but I tried to fix it with ink. I made it worse and since taking this photo, I haven’t managed to improve it. If I can master the transfer method, I’ll redo this photo because I think it’s got some potential for it.

For week 10 I need to:

*look into new shoes

*play with a puppy

*master this transfer technique

*submit to some art shows

*take photos of people as references for future portraits.

*buy a coat (it snowed yesterday!)

*research research research

-Megan

“Such fairy tales begin with an original lack of differentiation between two siblings: they live together and feel alike; in short, they are inseparable. But then, at a certain moment in growing up, one of them begins an animal existence, and the other does not.” –Bettelheim

Combination of silkscreen/drawing monoprints (or mixed media depending how you want to define it). Completed the final semester.

Graduate school 2nd year:

Artwork completed during my second year of graduate school.

Graduate school 1st year:

Artwork completed during my first year at graduate school. Media range from relief print, etching, silkscreen, and mixed media drawing/prints.

All work © Megan Frauenhoffer