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Sketches for new Queen City Scenes collection

 

Before embarking on this new collection and goal of “12 masterpieces” in 2022 I have been doing some electronic sketches and studies using the iPad and the app Procreate. Above are some of the sketches I have been producing over the winter.

I’ve been trying to get into the practice of documenting scenes and the effects of different times of day and the light, as well as the atmospheric gas affects of the clouds.

I’ve been also trying to get interesting vantage points and views of urban landscapes that might resonate with other people.

Once I build up this collection of subject matter and I plan to start experimenting with a variety of production methods:
- multicolor Serigraphs
- serigraph watercolor monoprints
- polyester lithography
- letterpress, magnesium plates
- woodcuts
- engravings (but need to teach myself)
- acrylic  and oil paintings
- watercolor paintings (maybe studies)
- pen and ink drawings

The 12 in '22

The past few years I feel like I've been balancing commissions with maintaining the Cincinnati Heritage Collection. I have been experimenting here and there with styles and developing new collections.

I've settled on a new collection that feels less graphic arts and advertising based and more observational art prints of scenes. This new collection may still be based in Cincinnati, but it feels a bit more liberating and I enjoy capturing reference imagery and using printmaking to capture reality in a stylized manner.

The prompt of 12 in '22 is inspired by my 52 in 2011 —a New Year's resolution that really started this current chapter of my career. In 2011 I felt very stagnant creatively, so I set the goal of creating 1 piece of artwork or creativity per week to re-inspire myself. With this new prompt of 12 in '22 I want to create 1 strong piece per month, and focus on quality of execution during the development of this new collection of work.

Last year I had the pleasure to develop a new piece experimenting in this new style to the Tiger Lily Press Calendar. I went to the Cincinnati Riverfront in the evening and photographed reference for a great cropping of 3 landmarks from our skyline that would fit into a 6" x 8" crop. I spent about 17-18 hours illustrating the scene, and about 16 hours printing 150 of the 3-color prints (what a long day!).

I'm planning to adapt this series to other mediums as well; for instance an idea for a woodblock of the riverfront at night (see below) and also to continue my work in Polyester Lithography as well.

What an exquisite corpse — I mean collaboration!

 One of the assignments for Jay Harriman's Intro to Polyester Lithography was for each student to create a self-portrait in the same size format, and we will print our collective prints onto sheets to create a group portrait.

For mine, I wanted to capture the many styles I work in, so I gridded my face and would apply mono-lineweight to some areas, halftones to others, realistic ball-point pen as well as a loose wash using carbon black acrylic paint.

The final effect is definitely kind of silly and maybe a little amateur-ish.

Below you can see an in-progress group portrait with four of the 7 artists having printed:

Emulating Caroline Williams

For years I have admired the work of Cincinnati artist Caroline Williams. Per pen-and-ink drawings as well as her engravings helped capture a Cincinnati transforming during the mid-twentieth century.

For this polyester litho plate I used a Bic ballpoint pen to create very small, gestural marks.

 

Remembering Yosemite

 I started taking a polyester lithography class at Tigerlily Press. So for the class I drew this scene inspired by our Yosemite wedding many years ago:

The drawing was made with Sharpie on a polyester plate — the marker will attract ink while the wet polyester will not accept ink during the printing process.

Ugh, so I did some test prints and I think I was in a crabby mood. I started messing up, got in the weeds and went home to sulk. First print was okay, second some ghost fingerprints emerged, then the third print was really bad (I used a gel toothpaste to clean the plate and worried I messed up the image).

Cedarville at dawn

Capping off my trip to Michigan with a "crepuscule" or "silhouette" style drawing inspired by a morning walk along the Les Chenaux shoreline of Cedarville's bay. It was one of those Monet type of mornings.

I drew this with fellow artists Anissa Pulcheon and Wesley Ericson while we were waiting for our East Walnut Hills mural wall to dry from morning fog so we could start a day of mural painting.

I created an ink foreground separately from a graphite sky — I merged them in Photoshop to simulate how I might create a watercolor mono print with the design.