Happy Earth, Wind, & Fire Day! *

 

Well, another year another blog post. Welcome to 2026. And if the world wasn’t in its current state of WTF is even happening, I would say it has been a good year so far. At least in terms of my art I am pretty damn happy.

Last fall I was crazy productive and ended the year with a lot of really great prints. At the start of the year we put our house on the market and the printmaking was put on hold. I shifted my focus to cross-stitching and then taught myself filet crochet. This led to a couple more gallery shows and I even received the 2nd place award at Blue Line Arts’s By Hand - An International Craft Nouveau Competition for my cross-stitch pieces!

We took the house off the market at the start of summer and my studios are back in use. I’ve been printmaking again while still exporing fiber arts. I am also taking an oil painting class this semester and that has me really excited to be painting again! Needless to say I am keeping myself happily busy. Lots of ideas and the hardest part is getting organized and staying focused.

I’ve also moved my website back to Squarespace, so the galleries and such as still a bit of a work in progress. I am hoping to get back to sending out the occasional newsletter. I’ve been in 5 shows this year so far, and besides posting on Instagram I have no way to let people know. So if you want the occasional update about my work and where it can be seen, sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of the page. Thanks 😊

First critique in painting class this afternoon - should be fun! I’ll keep you posted.

* I love that Tidal had a Celebrate Earth, Wind, & Fire ‘September’ Day playlist on their explore page this morning. Enjoy!



School daze

Huh. I really thought I had posted more of my adventures in litho printmaking, but apparently not since my last post was July 24. I really am trying to keep some momentum going here in Elfiniland...

Anyways, I was on a mad litho printing run for the rest of July and into the first week of August. I was listening to a lot of Ghost (prepping for the concert on Aug 10!) and had a bit of a theme developing:

RIP Ozzy. If I recall correctly (and that is a big IF!) the plates for these prints were all done with india ink and heat set.

I tried printing a couple plates that I ran through my laser printer instead of drawing directly on the plate. The plates looked good, but I had some trouble getting nice prints from them. I'll have to try this method again to see if I can get better results.

On Aug 7th my oldest and dearest friend Erik came out from Detroit for his annual visit, and we planned a trip within a trip and did a speed run to San Diego for Erin's first concert!

Ghost in San Diego. Photo by Ryan Chang. The concert was amazing and we had such a fun time on our 3 day speed run across California!

Bakersfield. You can see the crazy building behind their eyes!

An absolutely crazy 7 days full of way too much laughing and freeways!

And then the fall semester at Sierra started and I've spent the last 3 weeks screenprinting.

Blackened feathers falling down

For today's litho* experiments I used a Pentel Arts Pocket Brush Pen** with a new ink cartridge, and Dr. Ph. Martin's Black Star India Ink. And because I was using ink, I did heat-set these plates.

The plate on the left was drawn with the India Ink. I used the dip pen to outline the feather and then a brush to paint on the ink. The plate on the right was drawing with the Pentel brush pen.

I started by printing the brush pen falling feather plate first. It took many prints on newsprint to build up ink on the plate, but I managed an okay print.

The first test print of the India ink feather grabbed all the ink!

I switched to the good paper and then made 4 prints. After the first print which is obviously over-inked, I switched brayers, laid down less ink and stopped running the plated back through the press a second time and got better prints.

So, the brush pen and the Dr Martin's India ink and both viable options for making plates. I'm really excited that the lines made with the dip pen showed up. I don't really like drawing with Sharpies, but I love love love drawing with ink. I think I might just stick with the India ink for awhile while I work on getting the inking and printing of the plates dialed in.

*Pronto Plate Lithography. Please don't make me type that out every time.

** I should get a 2nd pen just to keep an almost empty cartridge in because that makes some amazing dry brush textures. I also didn't know that they had gray and sepia cartridges. Want! I'll pick up another one the next time I go to Blick Art Supplies.