Large Format Linocut Workshop at Atelier de l'Ile (Part 2)

Hello!
And again I've kept you waiting for a long time. I apologize! I just started my first full time job, I'm graduating with my Masters in Fine Arts in a few days and I'm going traveling right away the day after. Anyways June 4th-6th I taught the second and final part of the Large Format Linocut Course at Atelier de l'Ile. Denise, Nicole, Yolaine, Johanne, Lise and Marie-Claude completely blew my mind with their relentless printing efforts and team-work skills. We were all amazed how much we printed and finished during 3 solid days of work. The final outcome was an edition of 10 perfect prints 24x36 inches (combination of all 4 blocks), and numerous experimental monoprints, artist proofs and just plain old FUN!



Yolaine and Lise mixing inks and experimenting with different rolling/inking techniques.

Johanne and Marie-Claude experimented and printed lots on different fabrics, here they mixed colors and did draw-downs on their fabric swatches.

Nicole and Denise practiced mixing inks and finally decided on a few colors to use for their print experiments.

Yolaine spot rolling with small brayers.

First proofs.

First proof of the block that scott and I had finished at home.

Johanne and Marie-Claude inking.

First beautiful results on fabric.

Yolaine and Lise proofing on newsprint

Nicole and Denise, Inking perfection :)



Experiments on fabric and ricepaper.

More fabric awesomeness by Johanne and Marie-Claude.


After they practiced mixing inks, printing different colors, techniques everyone came to a first decision on what the colors for the combination print should be. So Saturday we pulled the first proof with those colors.

Then everyone discussed and made decisions on what needs to be done to make it work. The afternoon was spent with fine tuning it deciding on the "bon a tirer"(BAT print) and beginning the edition.

These are all 4 blocks.


The print on the left was the first proof, the one on the right was the BAT.

B.A.T. for those of you who aren't printmakers, the BAT is the version that the rest of the edition is compared to, it's the perfect print before editioning begins.

I liked the comparison of this proof and the print below. Nicole and Denise pulled this proof of their block during the first weekend workshop in May, then the two of them spent 3 weeks carving together to finish it before the second part of the workshop in June. I think it is very clear that they both learned A LOT! :)




A good monoprint of Yolaine and Lise's block.

Great experiment on fabric by Johanne and Marie-Claude.


Sunday we finished editioning. Thanks to the strange quality of the ink that we were using, the thickness of the paper and Van Son Three Way Dryer we were able to layer all four blocks on top of each other right away which is unusual. Usually one would print one color on the entire edition, let it dry, then print the second color... let it dry...etc. I'm glad we found a way to print all four layers one after the other per print, otherwise I don't think we would have finished during the weekend.



Hard work, YES. Loads of fun and laughter, YES! :)

At the end of the edition Johanne printed my block for me.

And Marie Claude inked my block for me so I could assist during each one of the printing runs themselves.

After we finished editioning, I showed everyone who they can do prints at home without a printing press, and we did one version of our print on Baika. Everyone tried the Speedball Baren, a Japanese bamboo baren and just a good old soup spoon.

Relentless teamwork :).

Yeay!

And this was the one copy on Baika ricepaper.

GREAT WORK LADIES! :)