my working process on a tilia stem print

I'm glad blogger finally got posting tags so I can group things easily. I went to a new opening at the Bemis Underground tonight so there will be a new review up soon. I really need to keep up on this blog for more than just the infrequent show critique (especially since lately it seems that every show I go to is a friend's and therefore against my unwriteen rule for review. It would be different if I was getting paid to write critiques, but I'm not I'm just writing them because I want to and also it's a better way to get writing samples than trying to whip something out at the drop of a hat. So generally I won't review the work of friends or personal acquaintances like professors, though one of my former professors does have work in the show I went to tonight and I'm going to review it, but I happen to really like her work and it's a grou show with a lot of artists so it wouldn't be prudent to review everyone but her.

Anyway I thought I would do a process series of posts on a piece I'm just starting work on. I'm still in my cellular material phase, but this one is going to be a print rather than a painting, so I thought that would be a good candidate for a process piece.

step 1: so I have a giant collection of microscopy photos of different types of cells. Whenever I'm thinking about starting another piece I scan through them looking for the general shapes or textures that I think will go well for whatever media I'm planning to work in. (oil paint, watercolour or linoleum carving prints. Though I've been thinking about screen prints lately as well) For this piece I decided on this tilia stem


step 2: once I've decided what image I want to work from, I take my chunk of linoleum and a pencil and sketch out first the basic arcs of what goes where and then fell in the detail. This is the first point where I ask myself why the hell I'm so into drawing such tedious intricate things :) (there will be many, many points during the carving process where I ask myself this. or in fact the painting process. I've started actually sketching out the images on my canvases now before I paint because it turns out nicer in the end than when I just did everything on the spur of the moment. I've just finished step 2 on this piece as you see below I've got my image and I'm all ready to start carving my lino.


To be continued as I get farther along.