Printmaking

The very first kind of printmaking I ever did was in high school. Here is an example of what I did with linoleum.

This is an image of Michael Duff, the lead singer of the band Chalk FarM. It was created by carving a linoleum block, and printing it in different colors.

Lithography

When I got to college, I randomly decided to try a lithography class, although I had no idea what the process involved. Little did I know that it was such a time-consuming, tedious process. Yet I fell in love with it, and took the class many times.

If you're interested in reading how this whole process works, read my attempt at explaining lithography.

This is the first lithograph I ever created.

It is an abstract piece created by drawing on a stone with litho crayons. 12.5" x 10.5"

I created this lithograph in my second lithography class.

I used a photograph I took of a sculpture, and created 2 photo plates. The background of the image was made with a stone. 12.5" x 10"

This was my final project for my second litho class.

It uses photographs I took of the Grand Rapids singer/songwriter Drew Nelson. I manipulated the images in Photoshop, and created a digital image that looks just like this print. Rather than just keeping it as a digital image, I chose to make a lithograph with it. To create this print, I printed the images on a computer printer onto Xante polymer plates. I used 3 different plates: 1 plate I rolled up one square in purple and another in red. Another plate I rolled up in green and blue. The last plate was all in black.

This is by far one of the most challenging prints I've done. I did it for my third lithography class.

I used a photograph I took of some lights through a cracked window, and manipulated the image in Photoshop. I used Photoshop to separate the image into CMYK - cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. I printed the images on clear film from the computer, and used those printouts to create 4 different photo plates. Doing this project made me realize just how important registration is. Since I was printing on the same piece of paper 4 different times (the yellow layer, red, blue, and black), I had to make sure I laid the paper down on the plates in exactly the same spot each time I printed. If I was off by the slightest, the colors would be shifted and the image wouldn't look right.

This is a large image - 36" x 16". It was displayed in the University of Michigan's School of Art and Design's 2001 Student Awards Exhibition.

In my third lithography class, I was involved in a collaborative book project. Five of us from the class were involved. Here are the prints I created for the book.

For our book, we chose to represent different parts of the heads. Parts that were chosen were the brain, the eyes, the nose, the ear, and the mouth - which I did. All of the images are 12" x 10".

The cover I show here is the cover I created for my own book - everyone created his/her own cover. I drew the image, scanned it on the computer, added the text, then printed it using an Xante plate.

For the middle image, I scanned pictures I took of children, and just used the mouths. Again, I used an Xante plate for this image. I also experimented with the process of chine colle for the first time. This involves gluing paper and printing at the same time. I glued the 5 different pieces of colored paper to the white paper at the same time I printed the image of the mouths.

This last image features a picture I took of Chris Johnston, the lead singer of the band 19 Wheels. I created this image in Photoshop, then separated it into CMYK and did a 4-color print.

Here is the work that I created in my fourth semester of lithography.

This first image is a picture I took of a neon sign. I fixed it up in Photoshop, and did a 4-color print with Xante plates. 12" x 8"

After creating that image, I chose to experiment and go crazy with different aspects of the image for the rest of the semester. I enlarged and cropped the image in Photoshop, and did a number of other things, and created a large number of prints. For some prints, I chose to just print the magenta and black layers, or the cyan and yellow layers, etc. I have created a couple pieces from the work I produced, and I may eventually create more with them.

Both of these pieces were accepted into the University of Michigan's School of Art and Design's 2002 student awards exhibition. The one on the left is 32" x 34", the one on the right is 23" x 40". The piece on the right won the Robert D. Richards Memorial Award.

During my fifth and last semester of lithography, I used the subject of neon signs once again. I printed 96 different images, each one 4 inches x 4 inches, and I have several copies of each one. I haven't done anything concrete with the images yet. After finishing all of the printing and seeing the final result, I was a bit overwhelmed by the different possibilities and have yet to decide on the best presentation(s). I have made a page with numerous presentation ideas in the meantime.

The image below is a thumbnail of all of the prints I did. Clicking on the thumbnail will take you to the page where I have my different ideas for ways to present the work.

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