Residency at Atelier de l'Ile - July 12 -26, 2009

I just returned from my Val David Residency Sunday night. It was quite the intense 2 weeks. I worked an average of 12-14 hours a day for two weeks, it felt so good to be in the old swing of things. I REALLLY love the little village and the silence and I absolutely adore the Atelier de l'Ile print shop, the atmosphere reminded me quite a bit of the Hartford Artschool's Printshop.
The artists that I met there where very content, quiet, hard-working printmaker's and I felt so at home that I think I'm going to return several more times to actually create the core of my thesis exhibition at the Atelier. I was very lucky to be able to stay with Nicole Davidson, who grew up in the village and welcomed me into her home as if I am part of the family. Needless to say I am already looking forward to my return up north which for now is scheduled for August 16th. During my week there, Paul Ballard one of the two technicians snuck up on me a few times to take pictures while I am working. He was so kind to let me download them to my laptop. :)

Inking the linoblock with color Lithography ink.Registering the ricepaper on the block.

Printing the linocut on the American French tool press.
Tracing my prep-drawing onto the big stone (this is the one that actually filled in completely, possibly due to problems with the chemistry, meaning I never got to edition it the way I drew it because it turned too dark, and then pitch black. )
Drawing up the first stone.
After the problems with the first stone I only had a few days left to do another print before the end of the residency. So I drew up a small stone in 2 days and it printed beautifully. This time we used a brand new batch of nitric acid for the etch and it worked fine! :) On the Saturday when I was editioning my stone the Atelier had an open house, there were many people in and out all day, a million questions where asked and it was definitely a rough day. This is me inking up the stone during editioning.
The inked up stone ready for the paper to be put ontop and printed.
I editioned the stone on plain white paper as well as ontop of the pattern linocut.
Tomorrow I'll head to school to scan this print before I have to sent the edition to the ArtHouseCoop Printexchange.

Before Scott and I headed back to Montreal I got to practice some more driving Standard in his car, and we went to Lac Raymond and took nice walk. It's a beautiful place :).