Announcement:

Bringing this back to the other blog, re-combining art and thoughts as it were.

Up the Week: 9

Hey there, sorry this is late.

I really do try to update on time, but this week the semester came to a close and I forgot what day it was.

This week in weather: 

Spring is here. Finally.

I am currently sitting in my apartment with all of the windows open. I can hear the sounds of church bells, seagulls, children playing, and a (slightly grating, but nonetheless indicative of spring) chorus of lawnmowers drifting in.

plus, my radishes are becoming radishes.

This week in silly doodles:

I’ve been playing around on the computer doing silly drawings using the trackpad on my laptop. They are not exactly high art, but they are fun.

This is a drawing of Graham wearing a t-shirt on his beard.

A donkey

and finally some kittenflies.

This week in legit artmaking: 

First, here is a much better picture of one of my cut paper portraits that I did for my final 2D project.

and secondly, here is my art storage area (which leaves  lot to be desired) and all of my prints from this semester (most of which are wrapped up in newsprint).

I haven’t been making much this week, as it was finals. Right now I’m trying to get myself together and set up an etsy shop.

and finally,

This week in Light Refraction: 

This has been on my ceiling every morning this week.

See you guys next week,

Emmeline

Up the Week: 8

This weeks realization:

If hell exists as the catholic church believes it exists, I am going there.

I finished this set of scientists as saints (2.5×3.5″) prints! From left to right: Nikola Tesla, Sigmund Freud  , and Gregor Mendel.

This week’s joyous celebration:

On Wednesday, I finished the last project I will ever have to do for 2D design. I did this three-part series of cut-paper portraits of my friend Nancy. I repeat: cut paper. Sorry about the picture quality, these are from photobooth.

This week’s  distraction and antisocial behavior enabler: 

Google Art Project 

Look at that zoom. LOOK AT IT.

It’s currently a work in progress, but it is an impressive work in progress.

This week’s print, and poem: 

The Genius Of The Crowd by Charles Bukowski

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

See you next week,

Emmeline.

Up the Week: 7

This week’s big news: Spring!

well, almost spring. It’s been in the high 50′s for about a week, and we all know what that means.

Time to start early-season seedlings! Radishes!

Woohoo! Hopefully I’ll be seeing some sprouts in the next couple days.

This week’s plates:

First, I’ve been working on my scientists as saints project, here are the sketches,

Here are the plates before I etched them,

and here are the proofs. I am going to go back in to the plates and drypoint some things and try to solve problems. The shading is a little weird, I had used stippling to shade, but then I think something was wrong with my hard ground, because the acid bit it really deep and kind of spread out. oh well.

Next, here is the design for my final project this semester in print, I’m bringing back the rats.

And the plate: I still haven’t printed it yet.

I may have to re-expose this, there are a couple parts that are kind of peeling up.

This week’s apology: I’m sorry I missed last week, I offer up my calendar as a flimsy excuse. Everything in green are is a due date for a project.

Sorry!

I was out of town this weekend! keep an eye out for an up the folks studio update later this week!

-Em

Up the Week: 5

Hello all!

The semester is coming to a screeching halt, violent conclusion, sudden stop. Whichever terminology you prefer,  it’s going to be a short update this week.

This week’s prints

Well, they’re actually from the beginning of the semester, but I just got them back.
We started off the semester with zinc relief and collagraph.

First, Rat zinc relief.

Onion series (collagraph)

They’re not the best prints I’ve ever done, but it was a fun project.

This week’s desk shot

It’s a bit chaotic around here right now. The semester is coming to a close with a speed usually reserved for large jungle cats and humming bird wings. Thus, things like cleaning and organizing have gone by the wayside.

So naturally, my desk has fallen first from grace.

I have no idea where to store art. Do any of you have suggestions? right now everything I’ve made since I got here is sitting in a pile in the corner of my living room.

This Week’s HUGE BUMMER

WHAT THE HELLING HELL IT IS APRIL.

I need it to be spring.

Oh well.

See you next week,

Emmeline.

Up the Week: 4

This week’s studio blog is brought to you by our main sponsor: stress.

This week’s happening: Merit Show!

As I was taking this picture I realized how devoid of color most of my work is. Oh, and the paper on the left may look blank, but it is not. It has millions of tiny dashes on it in pencil.

This show is home to two of the worst mats I have ever cut. Things just were not working for me last night.

I kept cutting wrong, measuring wrong, and not getting the corners to line up, but I did eventually bang out two usable (barely passable) mats. I will not be secure in this show until the walkthrough monday is done. I am so anxious about it that it’s been interfering with sleep.

This week’s Print: (still in progress)

Close up of bigger block:

I’ve still got to print the other sides and assemble these in to pamphlets,  but I’m hopeful about these.

I did run out of this color though, so I’ll have to mix more tomorrow.

This week’s Outing: Target!

on the way to which I was afforded this view of my adorable little city

I had to buy a mouse to plug in to my laptop, because I am an idiot.

I spilled water all over my laptop.

Good news: everything except the click-y part of the touchpad seems to be working perfectly.
Bad news: The click-y part of the touchpad isn’t working.

Hopefully next week I will be exponentially less stressed, See you then.

-Emmeline.

Up the Week: 3

This week’s sketchbook page:

on the left is some patterning I was working on, and the right are just some thumbnail sketches for an ongoing project (making zines from my grandparent’s memoirs.) 

 

This week’s plate + print:

In progress. The plate is 17″x24″

and here it is printed:

I’ll get a better picture once it dries and I take it home.

This week’s pictures on location:

This is the print lab where I spend a good 80% of my time at MECA.

letterpress and relief presses

and here’s my plate waiting for some paper.

Its probably a little gross how much I love printmaking and this room.

This week’s MacGyver’d Art Historical proccess:

Mosaics!

This particular mosaic was exceptionally problematic for me. What happened was, I made it and was really happy, then I grouted it.

The colors of the grout were FAR too harsh for the image, so I spent a couple hours thursday painting the grout to make a more gradual transition from the light gray to black in the halo.  I Macgyver’d that shit.

close up:

mosaics with glass tiles ar

This week’s Happening:

friends!

Dan and Kate came to visit me!
They played drunk bananagrams while I slept (the remains of which I found in the morning.)

My life is pretty magical.

Dan is in grad school for film studies (maybe? I’m a terrible friend) and he goes to 3-5 movie screenings a week, that’s why there is a Red Riding Hood press packet on my dining room table.
Dan left monday morning, then Kate and I drove up the coast looking for scenic Maine beaches. We found them:

Photo courtesy of Katie Gross.

Photo courtesy of katie gross

We also found the LLBean outlet

Photo courtesy of Katie Gross.

On our way back to portland we found this remnant of a different age in roadside stops.

photo courtesy of katie gross.

Kate was much happier than this picture makes it seem.

 

See you next week,

Emmeline

Up the Week: 2

This week’s sketchbook pages:

This week I downloaded the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack and have been listening to it almost nonstop. While waiting for print to start on thursday I got a coffee and started doodling while listening.

A week or so ago I was in art history and while lecturing about byzantine mosaics, our professor told us that “Nimbus” is another word for halo. Needless to say I immediatley stopped taking notes, and started trying to make Harry Potter in to a religious Icon. I’ve since been drawing it everywhere.

This week’s relief plate(s):

Teacups! and a book page.

I’m also working on a relief plate for my Thinking with Drawing class which I cannot get a picture of. I’ll have to show you once it’s printed, there isn’t enough differentiation in color on the plate for my camera to pick it up.

This week’s action shot:

Anyone else hate coloraid with a burning fiery passion?

This is what my desk usually looks like (sans paperchaos) :

This week’s Favorite artist:

Randal Thurston

Last week he came to my school for a visiting artist lecture, and gave a workshop for my print class.

His work is insanely precise and stunning, but thats not why he’s this week’s favorite. He’s this week’s favorite because I identify so much with his process. During his lecture he outlined some of his thought process and idea generation, and I felt like he was somehow in my brain, it was very strange to watch someone talk about a process of ideation that is so similar to your own. I hope someday to have that level of craft and insight in to my own work.

It’s also possible that I like him because he brought us posters and complimented my print.

This week’s dilemma/anxiety producing choices:

The Merit Show at MeCA is coming up, and I am having a hard time figuring out what to put in (5-10 pieces)

this is what I have so far:

from left to right: Reduction print, Slow Loris sculpture, Rat Necklace (top, in the plastic bag), Embossed rat prints, Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Knowledge (book with every work cut out), 4′x4′ tiny repetitive mark drawing (rolled up)

that’s 6, so technically I am set, but the anxiety is coming from this:

This is a hollow constructed ring I  made last semester, inside of it is the following excerpt from Charles Bukowski’s poem Bluebird:

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody’s asleep.

I say, I know that you’re there,

so don’t be

sad.

The problem is, I have no idea how I could display it, or how I would let people know that there is that segment of poem inside of it (it is important for the piece that an observer know what is inside of it.)

I’m also just generally anxious about the show, I haven’t put my work up at this school before and its generally stressing me out.

This week’s moment of joy:

there are actually two,

first:

Rosemary sent me bowie buttons!!

second: IT IS SPRING BREAK.

See you next week,

Emmeline.

Up the Week: 1

This week’s sketchbook pages:

Can you tell the first one was scanned in to a MUCH better scanner? Thats the difference between a very expensive fancy scanner at school versus the shitty one that is attached to my printer at home.

(okay, the one above is from last month, but i just scanned it today!)

I’ve been recently in to recording things that don’t really matter. Like how many cups of tea I’ve been drinking, or the food left in my apartment.

Most of my sketchbook practice is based in project planning. I’ve been working with obsessive patterning for my Thinking With Drawing course.

Sketches for relief plates for printing, featuring a silly drawing of my cat as a dragon. Plus, notes on things to look up when I get home: Obsessive Consumption.

This week’s FINISHED PRODUCT:

(Yes, I know I need to work on taking better pictures, but it’s nighttime and my living room has really dim lighting and I wanted to show you guys now!)

3-layer reduction print. 11×15 on european rag paper (Rives BFK). The plate was carved MDF

Close-up!

This week’s moment in Art History:

Winged Victory of Samothrace. Hellenistic Sculpture 190 bce.
THIS SCULPTURE IS SO GORGEOUS I CAN’T EVEN HANDLE IT.

MacGyver’d art practice of the week:

Operation “Trying to flatten a print at home with large books”: Successful! My Gardner’s Art Through the Ages book is beautiful, but this is the most useful thing i’ve done with it.

Books Pictured: Art Through the Ages, Don Quixote, Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
Not Pictured, but added later: The Flounder by Gunter Grass

Next week’s Project:

Cut paper shadow puppets! (hopefully)

See you next week,

Emmeline.