printing press

What a glorious day. Spent the morning noodling around putting the finishing touches on a deco, using Trudy, my hirsute beaky heroine. I'm going to sculpt her in papier-mache as soon as the weather turns a bit drier. Trudy is also my laundro-mat name. What's yours?

A scrumptious breakfast with Jacque precluded a pretty stout bike ride - not only did we ride a little further, but through several weather systems. Thank god for gore-tex. What a blast. Came back and J saw something she said would make a great picture:



She's right! It's taken from above, my second-story balcony. So much water everywhere this last rain-season.

Went to FredMeyer (one of those one-stop-shopping places...I was good, I passed up the 3 for a dollar bakery sale items, after six o'clock everything must go!). Got a big bag of UNorganic flour, to use for papier-mache paste...a few other sundry items, and the cashier automatically reached for a paper bag - asked me if that was okay and I said, "sure." A little unusual, plastic is the default for most cashiers. Gathered up my things and noticed that he was drawing an outline of his hand on the next paper bag. Got home and saw he'd put his mark on mine too:



Ahhh! Isn't that great? I wonder if he and a friend dared each other to do that all day at work today? When I see him next time I'll thank him for the unique giftwrapping.

And finally, I carved my first big piece (well, big for me, it's 4x6 or about 10x15cm)with my new Speedball carving set (I did an eraser carving first)! Oh wow. I can't go back now - using an exacto knife for the last few months on the occasion I carved (even for linoleum) has helped me appreciate just how slick this new tool is. The right tools, baby, makes all the diff! So I decided to use one image for two projects: one is a 'draw me' swap and the other, a 'favorite artist' swap for decos (mini art journals for those of you who have never heard of decos).

The 'draw me' is from Swap-Bot, a place I haunt now and then. It's an art challenge swap. You are partnered up with someone, you most likely do not know this person, you obtain their picture/s via email and - draw him/her.

I found Samuel Casal through Guilherme Merconde's Tygeranimation short. A collaborative effort between several groups of artists who never actually met in the same physical place. Check out that animation, it is superb. Samuel Casal's art is amazing. So, I pay homage to him here and fulfill a couple of projects and I had a hell of a good time to boot. Here is a prelim:



What a rush! Every time I've carved an image, be it linoleum or a rubber stamp, and then ink it up and print it...then peel back the paper...I'm astonished. I love printing. You could carve a stick figure and it'd look super keen. For this print, since it is still in progress, I used a piece of newsprint paper. I burnished it with a spoon (lacking a 'real' printing press). I bought some good paper at the art store on payday last week...I'm stoked to start using it!!

A good day indeed.