Continuing our support of a healthy environment for birds and beneficial insects, this creative workshop will guide you through the process of making paper by hand with seed inclusions. This unique handmade paper can be used as a small note card or a gift tag specifically designed to be planted in the ground to grow native KY flowers and grasses that are necessary for butterflies, Hummingbirds, bees and beneficial insects!

The paper can be formed with a variety of cookie cutter shapes, including butterflies, bats, trees, flowers, dinosaurs, moons, stars and much more. Join the fun – meet me at the paper making tent at JSP’s Fall Arts Festival!

The post Up to Our Elbows in Paper Pulp at Fall Arts Festival this Sunday September 9! appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

The Beneficial Insects book is comprised of 36 pages with 10 original, multi-color relief engravings. The page sizes are 6 inches high by 7 inches wide. A limited edition of 30 letterpress books and a possibility of a commercially printed version are planned. Joanne Price is the author, artist, printer and binder for this exciting project.

This project is very slow and time consuming because of the process necessary to create the illustrations. Each illustration is hand drawn and then transferred to a printing block. Then the image must be engraved/carved so that it stands in relief. The first of the print matrices to be created is called a “key block”. The key block is then transferred to 3-4 separate blocks and each is engraved/carved based on the color that will be printed from it. Then each block is printed together—one on top of the other—to create the final image. I go through many color trial proofs finding the correct color and transparency for each color to maximize each layer. If I can print three colors and make it look like there are 5 colors (with overlapping colors creating additional colors) – I am happy, but that rarely happens! After several color trial proofs, the image is hand-printed, one color at a time, one piece of paper at a time. Each image has taken an average of 4 months to complete.

My studio desk – you can see the plastic plates with transferred images on them. The obvious tools are the u-gouges and v-gouges, but there are plenty of engraving tools on hand – they are the ones with the mushroom-shaped handles.

You can see the plastic (High Impact Polystyrene) plate I have engraved/carved attached to a Boxcar base. The plates were printed on an SP-15 Vandercook proofing press. All of the proofing and color trial proofs were printed on my 1913 Vandercook Proofing press. There is one plate per color. The Vandercook presses make registration of colors a snap. the press holds the paper in the exact same spot consistently and I can make adjustments very easily with the twist of a knob or two.

The yellow and blue plates printed together.

The yellow, blue and red plates

The yellow, blue, red and dark blue plates printed together.

Just two of many, many color trial proofs. The purple petals were throwing everything off and so as I was printing the first color, the green background –it occured to me– leave the petals white! I was happy with that final decision.

White petals! And then I added the blue/violet color block afterwards to make it all pop. The key plate on this image was printed in a dark brown – far less harsh/contrast-y than the black in the color trial proofs.

Yellow and red plates printed together

Yellow, red and blue plates printed together – right before the final key plate (dark brown).

All colors, plus the dark brown key plate. In case you are wondering – the butterfly is a Great Spangled Fritillary (on a Gaillardia bloom) – not formed from the monarch caterpillar (seen at right).

The post Beneficial Insects Image Process appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

Joanne Price of Starpointe Studio will guide visitors through a FREE event – the creation of your own BUTTERFLY book!

Did you know that the Viceroy is Kentucky’s state butterfly? Viceroy’s are called mimics because they copy the appearance of a Monarch butterfly to scare away predators (the Monarch does not taste good).

The butterfly book covers are original prints designed, hand-printed and cut by Joanne Price. Customize your very own butterfly book to record stories or drawings or leave it as a fun paper sculpture that can flutter in the wind!

The photographically created printing plates are seen on the printing press – butterfly books by the hundreds!

These girls decorated their butterfly books and wrote stories about Paris and ice cream!

The post Butterfly Books to Pollinate Josephine Sculpture Park’s Fall Arts Festival! appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

BUGFEST is Saturday September 16, 9am–4pm

Beneficial Insects: A Work in Progress by Joanne Price Exhibit in Bernheim’s Visitor’s Center September 8th–October 31, 2017. Bernheim is open everyday 7am–8pm. FREE admission to all Monday–Friday
Only $5.00 per car, minivan or motorcycle, $10.00 per van, RV on Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays

The Beneficial Insects artist’s book project was conceived of and started in 2014 with Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest’s “Local Use for Local Artists” (now called Regional Artist Program) support and continued with an Artist-In-Residence opportunity at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (Minneapolis, Minnesota) from July 27 through August 9, 2015. Then, in January 2017, I received a Kentucky Foundation for Women’s Artist Enrichment grant that boosted the Beneficial Insects project with financial support.

This project is very slow and time consuming because of the process necessary to create the illustrations. Each illustration is hand drawn and then transferred to a printing block. Then the image must be engraved/carved so that it stands in relief. The first of the print matrices to be created is called a “key block”. The key block is then transferred to 3-4 separate blocks and each is engraved/carved based on the color that will be printed from it. Then each block is printed together—one on top of the other—to create the final image. After several color trial proofs, the image is hand-printed, one color at a time, one piece of paper at a time. Each image has taken an average of 4 months to complete.

The page sizes are 6 inches high by 7 inches wide, and 36 pages with 10 multi-color relief engravings. There will be a limited edition of 30 letterpress books and a possibility of a commercially printed version. Joanne Price is the author, artist, printer and binder for this exciting project.

The post Beneficial Insects Gather at Bernheim for Bugfest! appeared first on Starpointe Studio.