Craa-ack! As relief print artists we don’t talk often about the mistakes, accidents, or failures that lead us to a final composition, color choice, or resolution. Or how those accidents sometimes have nothing to do with aesthetics, rather they were hard lessons about materials, physics, chemistry, patience, and/or common sense. So, I’m going to share my most embarrassing wood engraving mishaps with hopes that we can have a great discussion, learn from others’ mistakes, and swap disaster stories! – Joanne Price

Anyone is welcome to join the conversation (you don’t need to be a WEN member) — bring your disaster stories and your questions — this should be a cracker!

If you missed this exciting event, WATCH THE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/PCPx51ni1E4

Find out what disaster struck this reductive self portrait…

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After finishing the engraving, the block was printed on the very same printing press that Melanie VanHouten (JSP Artistic Director) helped me move into my studio on a frigid day in January 2017! The “Thank you” cards received the same royal treatment as the engraving – going through sketches, color and font selections – before a final design was selected. While the card was digitally designed, the printing process is the same as the engraving — printed on my 1925 Chandler & Price clamshell press. For a sculpture park, I wanted to get a really nice embossment of the design in the paper — creating a sculptural relief — from relief printmaking! The card’s paper, Flurry, is made using wind and hydro energy — responsible environmental choices are the default for Starpointe Studio and JSP.

Photograph of the old tobacco barn – ant’s eye view. (Photo credit to Joanne Price, June 7, 2018)

Panoramic photo with newly planted trees and soon to be planted native flowers and grasses for prairie restoration on the south side of the driveway to Josephine Sculpture Park. Photo credit to Joanne Price, June 7, 2018.

One of several sketches first submitted to Artistic Director, Melanie VanHouten, for approval.

After making some changes to the drawing/composition, a final sketch is ready to be transferred to the 3 x 4 inch endgrain Maple wood block for engraving.

The end grain block with drawing transferred and engraving process begun. The surface of the block is toned with black printer’s ink to help my brain remember that what I carve away will be white. Some elements of the drawing are further clarified and/or decided as I engrave.

Further progress on engraving. The white is a chalk I use to help me see the lines better. In wood engraving, the block is cut by hand with tools called burins – one tiny line/mark at a time.

The finished print displayed above the engraved block. Notice that the image is reversed.

And finally the green part of the “Thank you” card being printed on my 1925 antique printing press.

And then, 2019’s end of the year thank you note to donors (who gave over a certain amount) received a handsome bookmark with part of this image — printed directly from the woodblock with some hand-set metal type. Josephine Sculpture Park is a favorite place of mine — supporting art in Kentucky, serving a largely rural area, creating a space where science and art can come together (ie: NASA Museum Alliance Night Sky Tours, Frankfort Audubon Society programming), and JSP’s commitment to nature and art education, and sustainable land stewardship. JSP supports all the things that I love and believe in! If you’ve never visited JSP before — you should visit now — they are open everyday, 365 days a year. Find the sculptures I used in the print! Hint — they are not where I have drawn them.

Illustration with hand-set metal type.

Front and back of the 2019 “thank you” bookmark.

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I started by drawing directly on the block.

This print was originally printed with a construction steamroller at the Portland Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. The free public event was organized by Rachel Singel of the University of Louisville and supported in part by a grant from Burning Man.

The edition was printed on a large Takach Press at the University of Kentucky with printing assistance from Charles VanMeter.

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Cutting the block is very physical and obviously there is a huge amount of wood chips created from a block this big!

These prints take a lot of work and planning and sometimes I don’t get things right the first time, which is easy to forget when I’m only posting the finished pieces and not every step of the process. As I was cutting the 18 x 24 inch woodblock, I realized I should have included a prey animal to allude to the hunting tradition. So, I decided that I would add a little rabbit as part of the screen printed colors.

3 of the 5 screen printed colors complete – the 6th color comes from the woodblock.

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– A Jackalope in black & white — a woodcut interpretation of the mythological wild-west-beast.

– An illustration for Wells Book Arts Center’s fifth chapbook, Negative Compass by Bret Shepard.

– And three wood engraved illustrations for the University of Kentucky King Library Press’ upcoming letterpress publication, “Ma non e una cosa seria” (But it’s not really serious, 1917), a Luigi Pirandello play translated from Italian by Ann Colcord for the University of KY’s King Library Press. A comedy in three acts following a wealthy womanizer and the homely/humble manager of a boarding house. The book will be available late 2018 from the King Library Press.

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The conference theme is “Go West.” In that spirit, Gillespie sold the Jackalope portfolio exchange theme to 23 participants: “The frontier is forever mysterious, and popular mythology has forever been a part of the lure to travel to the West… Certainly, there must be wild, enchanted species still hiding away in the lost recesses of the back country… If there is a single favorite illusion that captures and thrills us most, especially when we think of going West in America, it may be the idea that there are members of Lepus townsendii, the White-tailed Jackrabbit, that have evolved to grow horns.”

In addition to the great theme/subject of the portfolio exchange, Gillespie gathered a great group of artists – my kinda tribe – how could I refuse?

And so, I researched my subject and made some sketches. At first I thought this might be a late addition to my Animal Terrorists series – the origins of the legend of the Jackalope are rooted in a relative of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) – the Shope Papillomavirus. Whereas HPV corrupts cells in the human cervix to build cancerous tumors, in rabbits the papillomavirus manifests as hard, keratinized horns. I explored the idea of a micro/ macro perspective with Shope or HPV cells or a close-up of skin and hair follicles. These all seemed to obvious and literal, so I opted for a lighter comparison to Peter Rabbit and a visual relation to the symptoms of HPV. Not exactly cutesy origins…

A visual documentation of the process:

The original thumbnail sketches and the final sketch, ready to be transferred to the block.

The beginning of the cutting. This is a woodcut, not a wood engraving – a transition in scale from my usual work.

I blacken the relief surface as I cut, so I can see the drawing and marks easier.

I pulled a proof on tracing paper so I could more easily develop the rest of the composition. Combining screen printing and woodcut can be tricky, but I have a pretty good system to help match the two processes – that’s a whole separate blog post!

This stencil is ready to print. The stencil is made by coating a polyester fabric with a photo-sensitized liquid emulsion. The image is hand-drawn with opaque paint marker on a translucent film-like sheet. The areas of photo-sensitized emulsion that are exposed to UV light harden and become water-proof so that I may print with acrylic, water-based inks. Unexposed areas wash away with water to create the stencil.

Colors one and two printed – the first was yellow and the second, blue.

And the third color, a transparent darker green.

Finally, printing the woodcut on top of all that screen printed color.

I struggled with the title, trying to tie together the awkward ideas behind it and the angry, devil-horned Peter Rabbit. I settled on “The lumpy lore of the Jackalope.” Hilariously, one of the other participating artists had the exact same title – minus one word!

The transparency and overlapping of colors make magic – my favorite part is the brown eye.

View the entire Jackalope Portfolio on exhibit in downtown Laramie, Wyoming October 3 through 6 during the Mid America Print Council Conference!

Check out the black & white version of the Jumping Jackalope available for sale in my online store.

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EXHIBITIONS
See the Beneficial Insects on exhibit in Pressing Entomology, Plantory, Lexington KY. March 16 – May 4. Opening reception Friday March 16, 5pm.
Visions at the Capitol, Capitol Annex, Frankfort, KY. Through April 6.
The Society of Wood Engravers 80th Annual Exhibition, Zillah Bell Gallery, North Yorkshire, UK, February 24–March 17. Da Gadderie at Shetland Museum & Archives, Shetland, Scotland, March 31–April 25. Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, Scotland, May 5–June 15. Woodend Barn Art Centre, Banchory, Scotland, June 24–July 21.
Wood Engravers’ Network Third Triennial Exhibition, University of Oregon School of Art & Design, Eugene, Oregon, June through July 7.

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After removing the rust from my 1925 (new to me) 8 x 12 Chandler and Price printing press, I needed to figure out how to animate it. Operating the press only with my hands and arms is not practical or efficient. My options were to buy a foot driven treadle (like old sewing machines had) or a belt driven motor. I decided to go for the motor.

So, I acquired a motor, which happened to be sitting around Hound Dog Press (lucky me – they are very generous). The next step was to find a pulley for the press so I didn’t have to use the fly wheel (the big wheel on the left side) as the belt driven pulley. I found an 11.5 inch pulley on Etsy – it was being sold as a “Steam Punk” accessory for crafts! The bore hole was too small, so I had to bring it to a machinist to make it bigger.

We now have the motor, pulley and belt – now I had to secure the press and motor in place. I opted to build a platform that could act as a pallet if I ever needed to move all 1200 pounds of press again – this would make our lives much easier.

So after a couple very helpful, strong men assisted us in moving the press onto the platform, I could place the motor in the correct spot, mount it to the platform and install the belt. I also refinished the feed boards. Click on the image above to see the press in action!

Needless to say, I wasted no time at all putting the fully operational press into action! I printed four separate “jobs” in two days – here are a few! It was pretty easy to print a polymer plate, handset type and a wood engraving block – I’m very pleased!

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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!

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