Blonde on Blonde and Gratuitous Corn Proofs

On Friday i'll be saying goodbye to the Vandercook 4. It's the first press we used at Brown Parcel, and it's the only way I could have started the business while I was still in school. Why is this? My former partner and I were able to start the press because it's owner kindly agreed to let us lease it for $50 a year. Insane, I know. The owner will be driving down to the general store to load her up on Friday, and i'd be lying if I said it didn't sting a little, but she's served us well, and fortunately, i've already located her replacement. To assuage mounting separation anxiety I decided she and I should do a little color study today.

One thing that always surprises me in printmaking is the interaction of color on paper as well as with itself. Even though color mixing is one of my favorite parts of printmaking, it's always challenging to predict exactly how that color will be worn on the paper. You have to consider the thickness of the paper as well as any undertones. That is to say, it may be white, but how white? Bright white, soft white, pearl white? All of those slight differences will greatly affect how the viewer ends up reading the color.

Above is what happened in the studio today. This ear of corn and I experimented with layering. What happens when you take the same color and layer it on top of each other one, two, three times? I wanted everything to look subtle and effortlessly intriguing. Whether it was a success or not who knows, but it felt good to print on the 4 one last time.



Finally, I couldn't resist using this creepy real life tone on tone study to reiterate my color points. This photo is a total accident. It seems to be becoming the norm these days, but, there was an otherworldly moth on our screen door Monday morning. Because of the time of day, and the fact that the moth was clinging to the screen door on the back porch, there wasn't adequate light to make a successful document of it's intricate coloring. So, I ran into the house and grabbed the first flat object I could find, junk mail. The idea was to coax the moth onto this paper ferry and get it out in better light without scaring it off. It worked, but the photos became more about the color coincidence than the moth itself. Here's to a day devoted to color.