Jennifer Zalewski Studio

Well, the Never-Ending linocut is coming to an end. I had the greatest name for the piece, too….  And then I forgot, lol. I hate when that happens! I have lots of time to brainstorm on my lunch-hour runs (training for a 10-mile road race) but I don’t carry a notepad with me, of course. And one day, chugging slowly up a long and arduous hill–I hit on the BEST NAME EVER. It was fun, it was catchy, but it wasn’t kitchy. I was excited about it. But then my mind rolled onto other things and it wasn’t until later on that I was like, “Oh! The linocut name! What, um, what was it again–?”  And I couldn’t noodle it out of my brain again. It was gone. Crud.

I printed the first 10 prints of the edition in Red Oxide (Akua Intaglio ink). The top photo is more accurate in terms of color- more of a burnt orangy-brown. I love it. The shot of them all drying is darker than ‘real life.’  Four prints are on Canson Rives Lightweight, 115 gsm paper. When I bought several sheets of it last year, I was worried the 115 gsm was too flimsy for multi-colored prints- and I put it aside for a year–now finally pulling it out to experiment. I found it was the perfect weight for hand-printing. Unfortunately someone (*coughLelacough*) trampled most of the stock, so for the remaining I had to switch to heavy Rising Stonehenge, which is 245 gsm. I love Stonehenge but it’s hard to work with if you aren’t using a press  And I wasn’t on this run. Hmf.

It’s been beautiful lately- hot even. The Two Muses have spent lots of time in-and-out of the studio–patrolling the yard, killing more voles (ugh), and enjoying frozen marrow bones from the butcher section of the supermarket–Yum!  We can’t complain–it’s been a spectacular spring so far.

Have you ever started something and it just felt… wrong? That’s how I’ve been feeling about my White-Line linocut of Jack and Lela. I haven’t made any mistakes (surprisingly, lol) but every time I’ve slid my gouges along the block, it’s just been … meh. There’s no fizz. There’s no sizzle. It’s just… there.

I hemmed. I hawwed. A trip to the University library was in order for some inspiration.  Perusing the shelves, I found a book featuring the single-color woodcuts of Unichi Hiratsuka, and was really inspired by the power of black & white. I thought about it a bit. It felt so good carving my Wilk linocut, but wasn’t sure I wanted to hand-color again (after hand-coloring 31 prints, yeah… yeah. Not for a LONG WHILE.). I surfed around the internet. I visited my favorite printmakers’ websites. And I decided just to go simple and carve a regular ol’ single-color linocut. I decided to really dig myself into it, graphic-ize the image with strong lines and make the dogs ‘pop.’ I re-sketched the block and went to town with Sharpies. Man, it felt so good!! When you have that electricity,  you know you’re on the right track.

So… that was mid-April.

Then there was carving. Carving, carving, carving. Brindles take a LONG time to carve.

More carving. Carving, carving, carving. Weeks of carving, working through Jack’s fur a couple hours a night at a time…

I love battleship gray linoleum. It can be tough to carve when it’s cold, though, even with sharp tools. Several years ago, I read about a neat trick:  leaving your block in the sun to “warm up”–really makes your gouges slide through like butter. Isn’t that a great idea?

The weather has been great the past couple weeks. It’s been really nice to warm up my block in the sun, plop down on a patio chair, and just enjoy the laid-back vibe of working outside.

(The black husky flipping Lee Lee? Our latest foster. Probably deserves her own post, more on that escapade later lol).

Jen

I’m just about done… Done!… hand-coloring all my Wilk linocuts.

To be honest, I had no idea what hand-coloring 30+ pieces would entail. If I never see this print again I will be a happy woman, LOL! I could only do a few per night before my wrist would ache from all the colored pencil layering and so getting all of these done (plus 10 more, who didn’t make the cut) was tedious, to say the least.  Tomorrow they will all be trimmed and then packaged up and shipped off to our Exchange Coordinator, amazing artist Diane Cutter,  in Puerto Rico. After all 30 printmakers submit their art, she splits everything up so we each get 1 print from all 30 artists.  I can’t wait to see everyone else’s take on the “Endangered” theme…

Jack and Lela spending some time in the studio with me. Quick, look! Lela is caught napping during daylight hours! It rarely happens!

Next on the docket? The Sleeping Pups White-Line Print. Except it kind of morphed a bit. More on that late. Right now I need to play referee– there’s a white cat in the front yard and all hell is breaking loose on Planet Lela–.

Jen

Fun weekend! My Mom took me to NYC as a very early birthday present. We had great weather, great trip! And lucky Dad, he got saddled babysitting “the Granddogs.”

He sent me this photo of Lela with his and Mom’s pugs, Amos (sitting) and Benny (pensive).  They were all on the window seat, afraid to miss any outdoor Squirrel Action. I’m not sure where Jack was during this time- probably upstairs having a meltdown, lol.

I went to NY hoping to get some Akua Kolor ink, but the two stores I visited- Dick Blick and Pearl- didn’t have any. Well, DB had black but that’s it. Disappointing. Well, I didn’t have much cash on hand but I did get a few linoleum blocks, some sizes I can’t find at the local store. Yay Pearl!

I also picked up a few sheets of decorative paper in Soho at Pearl River Market (not the same as Pearl the Art Store, but only a few blocks apart)- probably the most awesome store I’ve ever been in in my life. Seriously. How did I live in NYC for 4 years and never find this place? It was 2 1/2 floors of Everything Asian- clothes, fabric, paper, food, pottery, sculpture, paper art, books, etc etc… WOW. The paper alone was amazing!!! And pretty cheap, about $4 a sheet. I believe it was Nepalese Lokta paper, but not sure. I’m also not sure if it’s acid-free/archival but I thought it would be fun to buy a couple sheets to experiment with.

Can’t wait to play with this stuff!

Here’s my newest project (that is, in between hand-coloring all my wilk prints-!).  I thought it would be fun to attempt another white-line linocut, this time of Jack and Lela asleep on the bed.  Sometimes they can be so angelic, LOL!

With a white-line linocut (or woodcut), you carve away the lines of your drawing, separating each color. I’ll fudge this a little bit. Jack’s coat has at least 4 different browns, 2 different grays, and black- no way am I going to outline each one! I’d be working the block for weeks and I think it would end up looking goofy.

My little muses! I love it when they hang out in the studio with me. Jack is usually always there, since I eat dinner while working and God Forbid, he miss an opportunity for food.  Lela is with us very rarely. She has a rigorous evening schedule that includes patrolling the backyard for squirrels, emptying her toy box, patrolling the yard for squirrels, rolling in mud, and patrolling the yard for squirrels, dragging all her toys outside, and patrolling the yard for squirrels. Thank God for the doggy door or I’d probably go insane, LOL. She is quite the busy beaver. But alas! She actually decided to join Jack and I the other night and forgo some patrols. Maybe all the squirrels left town for Spring Break?*

Jen

*Well, all the squirrels may be on vacation but Lela finally had some ONE-ON-ONE with a rodent- Her dream come true. On Saturday I was working in the studio when I looked out to see Lela pouncing around in the grass, going ballistic. I thought she cornered a toad, so I ran out to check. I made Jack go with me, so he wouldn’t take the opportunity to steal my lunch off the table- you KNOW he would do that, he has no shame. Well low and behold, I parted the grass and Lela and I were face-to-face with an angry, hissing, um…. mole?? shrew?? vole?? Both of us were looking at it in pure wonder–I mean, if Lela could’ve talked, she would have been like, “Oh wow! Oh wow! Wow! Look what I found! Look! Holy cow! Listen to that thing YELL! Oh joy!!!” Of course, before we could do anything, Jack shoved us aside, snatched the thing in his mouth and ran off with it. The next 60 seconds ended up being a free-for-all with the poor vole/shrew being tossed around like a tennis ball, screaming bloody murder. When he finally died, oh God, it was so gross, I had to go inside to keep from tossing my cookies. Jack came in after me, bored- Game Over. Lela stayed behind and came in a few minutes later, apparently after rolling in the carcass and getting blood and pieces of intestines all over her fur. She was thrilled. It was NASTY. Believe me, this is NOT something a vegetarian wants to deal with, LOL! C’mon Puppies, give me a break here! LOL.

So in between experimenting with my White-Line prints, I decided to sign up for a Printmaking Exchange through BarenForum, a wonderful online community for **all-things relief printmaking**.    The theme of this particular exchange was “Endangered”, with 30 artists signing up.  We’re required to carve and pull 30 prints (using the theme as a guide) and then share them among the group. In the end, we will each end up with a collection of 30 prints from everyone participating in the exchange. Fun, yes? It really is!

Although I had a few ideas for the exchange, I finally decided to do a linocut of Wilk- Polish Wolves. When I visited Poland in 2002, we went to a special reserve of rare Polish animals in Bialowieza National Park, and I saw two wilk “in person.” From what I remember, it was a drizzly morning and they weren’t too excited to see more tourists coming through but… well…. they were stunning.  For years now I’ve been wanting to put my experience in Poland onto paper (or canvas) but everything I’ve tried hasn’t “come out right.” Well, this exchange seemed a great way to kickstart the project. Wilk are an endangered species, protected in Poland. Although they have a fair foothold in the eastern regions, the packs are small and scattered in the west, and their chances of long-term survival are poor.

Anyway, my “in-process” shots aren’t that great, since I have been camera-less– apologies!:

Here’s a shot of the linocut block I carved, printed, and my first try at hand-coloring. I’ve always thought hand-coloring kind of bastardized the fine art of printmaking, but after oggling over a book of Margaret Preston’s hand-colored woodcuts at our local university library… I re-evaluated! Her portfolio, mostly Australian floral and landscapes, is glorious.

This is how the process went:

1. Sketched out my wilk on the linoleum block.
2. Carved it out…
3. Inked it up and printed the block on gray cardstock- so far I’ve printed 27- a few more to go–
4. After they dried, I individually paint each one. I tried quite a few media – acrylic, gouache, watercolor pencils, ink pencils, colored pencils- both used “regularly” and then dissolved in solvent. I decided I liked the watercolor and ink pencils the best. I liked the colors, I liked the “zen-ness” of using them.  One by one, each print was pulled out and colored using the pencils and a bit of water.

And here’s my final. Well, not trimmed down or signed yet, but almost there…

Having struggled for several years with reduction and multi-block linocuts/woodcuts, I’m so glad to have found another technique that gives me all the color and none of the stress! LOL!

BTW, the title of the piece is Wilk w Spoczynku- Polish for “Wolf at Rest.” Image 6 x 8 with the paper size being “Chuban”, which is the traditional Asian woodcut paper size of 10″ x 7.5.”

I have been drooling over “White-Line Woodcuts” (or “Provincetown Prints”) for about a year now.  When I first started looking at them, I admit I thought they were unattractive. Kind of like when I first thought about adopting a greyhound– “They are so simple and ugly, why would I want to do THAT???” (LOL). Anyway, they have grown on me in the worst way and now I tend to find them much more intriguing than regular ol’ linocuts and woodcuts. I’m not sure why, but I love the brushstroke that comes out in the pieces, instead of regular flat color. I like that the white lines accentuate shape and kind of mess your eyes up (especially with very intricate prints), almost forcing composition and color shapes to play more intimately with the subject. It’s just different and… cool.

The process of White-Line Printing is pretty simple. You have a block (wood, linoleum, whatever). You draw your design. You chisel-out white lines around every design, every different color or object. Then you use a brush and paint the block, print it… wallah!

Since I was experimenting, I decided to use the sketch I based my “Coon Dawg” Oil Pastel on.

Readers of my blog perhaps may remember last October when I excitedly bought a package of Golden Fluid Acrylic paints to play with.  Did I ever play with them? No. This is an unfortunate bad trait of mine–I go gangbusters spending my paycheck on art supplies that I love looking at and oggling over, but become to afraid to use and “mess up..”  I mean, I bought the stuff and spent months iner-library-loaning books on Acrlyic painting how-tos, but totally psyched myself out to even open them and use them. Talk about fear of failure, LOL!  Well I did decide to try them for my first White Line experimentation, which was interesting:The Fluid Acrylics were fun to work with and very transparent- not as much as watercolor but very loosey-goosey. I LOVED working with them because I got such great strokes, but holy crow they dried fast! I had no idea acrylics were so quick. I’d be painting my block and watching them dry almost as soon as my stroke was done! That meant I had to paint tiny areas at once–Paint one stroke, print. Paint one stroke, print. From what I understand, you can’t reconstitute acrylics once they dry so I was really afraid I’d ruin my block letting the color sit on them too long. Ahhhhhh!

Next try was using my Akua Intaglio Printmaking ink. It is a very slow-drying ink, which was nice but can be a bit annoying. I used some Modifier to make it a little more soupy for the brush (next time, I will buy Akua Kolor instead–wby nature it’s more fluid). I had much more time for mixing color and layering, so this one came out better I think, although I lost some brushstroke:

What I didn’t like in the Akua version is that my lines were a bit fuzzier:

Compared to the Golden Fluid Acrylic version, which had very crisp lines:

I wish I had more process photos, but thanks to my young Canon SX20′s death (and I WILL speak ill of the dead, the lousy piece of junk!)–I only have scans of my finished prints. Sigh, next time!

I’m so stoked about this process. It’s REALLY time consuming, but a lot of fun.  Next piece will feature Jack. I’m excited because I think painting his brindle White-Line fashion will be much easier than carving each stripe as I would traditionally in my woodcuts/linocuts. Fun times, fun times!

Jen

Um…. Happy New Year!

I guess time has gotten away from me a bit. I don’t know why. I don’t feel like anything huge or substantial has happened, but, well, maybe we need a quick little 2012-So-Far-Recap? Here’s what’s been going on in Casa Z:

Jack

I don’t know if I mentioned this but Mr. Jackie passed his initial therapy dog evaluation and is now visiting an assisted living facility! He has three “trial visits” –one per month-before he ‘officially’ gets his wings. I’ve also been bringing him to rescue Meet & Greets to get him out, give him something to do. It’s hard because he can’t do the things he loves to do—go for long hikes, run with me, or play rough in the yard. I’ve kind of been putting off discussing it too much, but now we’re on Month—Nine? Ten?—of injury from the Iliopsoas muscle tear. Daily massages and motion exercises, weekly cold laser therapy.  Based on his progress, he’s been upgraded (downgraded?) from “acute” to “chronic” which means he will never fully heal and it will be something we probably have to deal with, on and off, for the rest of his life. Unfortunately we’re also dealing with complications from being physically unbalanced for so long- stress on his previously-broken hock ( a racing injury), possible nerve damage in his back and not only that, the shift in balance has resulted in a big honking corn on his right pad.  I can’t tell you how frustrating this is for the both of us. Therapy (cold laser, massage, passive motion exercises) have helped the Iliopsoas immensely but still, most of the time Jack is on 3 legs or limping significantly on 4. Last week we started using the ol’ Duct Tape method to smother the corn and that –along with a little hulling- has helped. Because Glucosamine and Omega’s weren’t doing anything, we bumped up to a non-prescription arthritis medicine called Duralactin, which hasn’t had much effect either… because of that… we’re now moving on to try Gabapentin, a prescription. I HATE to have such a young dog (4!!!!) on Gabapentin or other NSAIDs so early in life but at this point, I guess I’m willing to try anything.

Hopefully we can find some meds to help Jack feel better and then we can begin getting him ready for hiking/camping season and earning his CGC (Canine Good Citizen) certificate. I also think he could do Rally or Novice obedience for fun, to keep him occupied. I’ve bought a Clicker and am trying to brush up on Operant Conditioning and “Shaping” which is kind of hard for me to wrap my head around. Since he won’t be able to run with me anymore or do heavy hiking, I’d like to find something fun and easy-going to keep the lil’ boy occupied! Trying to stay positive about it all.

Lela:

It’s hard to believe Lee has only been with us 8 months- it feels like forever (in a good way, lol). She is SO ACTIVE and vivacious. The other day we had a playdate with my friend W and her French Bulldog—they rough-housed for 3 hours straight- then I took her hiking—then we did a trip to 2 different pet stores (looking for clickers, OMG they have tripled in price since they first ‘came out’ in the late ‘90’s!) then she did an hour of squirrel patrol in the backyard. Finally around 8 she went down for a nap. Yowser! After looking around and speaking with some local “dog people”, I found a highly-recommended Agility facility not-too-TOO-far away, and this spring she will begin Foundation Training! I’m hoping it will be a good outlet for her energy.

I also started jogging with Lela twice a week. It’s (emotionally) difficult because Jack can’t come along, and he used to be my running buddy. He cries and cries when we leave.  The weather up here has been relatively warm (we are 47” below normal this season, snow-wise!!) though and Lela could use the outlet, so I’ve started taking her along. She seems to like it a lot! Then I run 3 days by myself during lunch hour at work. I want to build her up gradually for spring.

Not to say it’s been all A++ fun. Lee’s really come out of her shell and in doing so, I’m learning to manage some of her more annoying habits. For example, she tends to get very amped-up and over-stimulated especially when trying to play with Jack (and ESPECIALLY if he won’t play back with her). At first I didn’t think there was anything wrong with her whipping herself up into a frenzy (“dogs will be dogs”), but a few weeks ago it led to a dogfight (their first serious fight!) where Lela ended up with a busted nose and two punctures between her eyes, and Jack had a ripped lower lip and tear on his front leg. Doing some reading, I found that YES, it is possible for dogs to get over-stimulated and to need “time-outs” if they are getting too rough! Just like children! I’ve never had dogs that required this before, but Lela clearly needs a bit of management/guidance when she gets super-duper excited, so she doesn’t spiral too far into the Stratosphere of Insanity, lol. Jack CLEARLY does not like it when she gets into those crazy moods and I need to intervene and calm her down before she thinks it’s okay to go apeshit on him and he decides to give her an A1 Ass-Kicking to take her down a notch. Not that I blame him for doing so. But still.

Art

I admit, I haven’t been doing as much art as I should be. I think that stems from a couple things. 1) this fall, I moved my art studio into the end living room of my house. Unfortunately this end of the house doesn’t get heat. Yep you heard that right! Now in all fairness, I should disclose that I have a small house- like- 700 square feet, if that. So the heat does move around, but there are no direct vents or anything in that end room. Plus the dog door is in there and it isn’t as tight as it used to be. I’m pretty hardy and enjoy being cold much more than being hot BUT after an hour or so of working your fingers and feet start to freeze and instead of putting on a fourth layer of clothes, it’s easier just to abandon the project and just head to the other side of the house to watch TV or something. 2) Second reason I haven’t been doing art has to be the Reading. I’ve been chomping some really awesome books lately including Van Gogh: The Life, which is about 1,000 pages of PURE slobbering WOW and Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend- A must-have for any dog lovers (especially if you grew up watching “Rin Tin Tin: K-9 Cop” on the Family Channel, lol).  Also, I Want my MTV which is great for reminiscing of the good ol’ days of the eighties when I would sneak around trying to catch Said Forbidden Evil Network when my parents weren’t paying attention. *Wink wink*.

I’ve also probably inter-library loaned every Colored Pencil and Pastel book in both the library and university (where I work) system so I could check out some new media. And I’ve read every one- page by page, exercise by exercise.  I love Monotypes but I need to find a nice medium to work with during the week when I don’t have 4 hour chunks of time for all the prep work and clean-up.  Something easy to pick up, put down. No mess. Something I will FALL IN LOVE WITH. I did a few Conte Pencil portraits for my brother for Christmas, and REALLY enjoyed them… well, except I’m not sure I want to work black and white all the time. Then I thought, “hmm. What about colored pencil? I LOVED cps when I was in high school and college.” So I’ve been playing around with them a bit. I have to admit, I don’t like “experimenting” much. I find it’s a waste of time. I want to jump right in, both feet, to a project and have it come out PERFECT. Colored pencils, especially when used with Turpenoid, were colorful and easy to handle (compared to painting with a brush) but require many layers to get those luminescent tones. Unfortunately I have bad wrists (beginnings of carpel tunnel?) and have been sleeping in braces the past few years—I noticed in a few days of using colored pencils, my wrists were really bothering me.  Around this time I happened to read Van Gogh: The Life and something about the book made me think about picking up my Oil Pastels again. Maybe it was all the reading about color and thick paint, and impasto… dunno… but that’s my next step. I’m starting out the year doing portraits of Jack and Lela for the art studio, Jack first! His sketch is almost done. Will post more about that soon.

I AM trying to work on some goals for this year. That’s another post. I’m sure I will be *HangingHeadInShame* when I look back on what I wanted to accomplish- and didn’t—in 2011 but oh well. Better luck this year!

But I do swear, I’m back to my regular blogging program and will have more stuff in a few days. Meantime, here are some photos from the last few weeks… enjoy!

I hope everyone had a nice weekend!

I’m really excited… this is my third “serious” monotype and definitely my favorite so far!

“Goosed”

11 x 14

Monotype

Lela –and her new goose stuffy- were my models for this one.  Surprisingly the sketch was super easy and poured out of my pencil within an hour. And I liked it (!!). Usually I struggle for a week or so (at least) over my first drawings but this one just came out exactly the way I wanted it.

(Lela was a bit concerned that I snatched away Goose for a little close-up work. She has thirty other stuffies laying around but LORD HAVE MERCY Goose was the one she wanted. Goose and only Goose). In the pic above, you can see the drawing taped under my large plexiglass plate. The paper is hinged with blue tape just above it. And there is Lela… giving me the skunk eye, lol.

“Don’t borrow him again, ‘kay?”

First order of business was working on the background. I actually used brayers to roll on layers of a nice grass green, covering the whole drawing. Then I used a paper towel to wipe the green away from Lela and Goose’s forms and Q-tips to add some lines and texture.

I had my paper (Seth Cole… it comes in a pad in the sketchbook section of the local art store. I LOVE this stuff. It’s not as thin as “eastern” paper, but not as heavy as “western” paper like Stonehenge… a great in-between)… I had the paper hinged on the top of the plexiglass plate. Once I was done working the green ink, I swung the paper over and onto the green, then used my trusty marble rolling pin to press the ink from the plate to the paper.

Wall-ah!

Next comes Lela. I use paintbrushes this time to block in her form. It was fun… her muscular gams, knobby elbows and little feet. So different than Jack’s physique!

Really happy with how drop 2 came out. Lela still needed a bit more, but she was coming along!

Third drop was an umber (very proud… I mixed it myself!!) for the goose.

After looking for this awhile, I decided to bring the umber more into Lela’s body too. Not a lot… just a few touches. Then I decided to try to mix a black for the rest of the goose and some final touches. I HAVE a black, but I didn’t want it so harsh… so I tried to mix. LOL. I ended up with a dark greenish-black:

To be honest, I was disappointed at first but the more I studied it, the more I liked that it was more green than black. I think black-black would have been way, way too much.

Here’s a photo (sorry for the blue cast to the paper… need to scan it for better results). I decided to call it “Goosed”.  I’m thinking to enter it in an upcoming art show, if I can muster up the nerve to enter.

Final stage… clean-up. Ugh! Monotypes are sooo messy. I didn’t take any photos of that anyway so no worries, won’t bore you with that.  But how about… the messy workspace?

“Catch of the Day”

11 x 14  Monotype

Akua Intaglio ink on Seth Cole paper

My newest monotype! I used brayers on the plexiglass for the first time  which pretty fun–led to the “roll” marks in the grass and sky.

More pics from the process:

My drawing taped under the plexiglass and hinged paper across the top. Jack is inspecting.

First colors painted on the plate, the paper flipped over onto the ink, and my marble rolling pin used to press the wet ink from plate to paper. The ghost is in the background. It came out REALLY light.

Second “run”… Pink tongue, Red toy! Sorry for the pinky tinge to the paper… bad lighting.

Next run was Jack’s brindling. Here it is painted on the plate. I used Pthalo Green and Crimson Red again to get a nice purplish-brown…

Here it is printed onto the paper.  There’s almost NO ink left on the plate!

4th run of colors…the green grass. I wasn’t happy with the way this came out at ALL. Hmmm.

Pondered what to do at this point. I tried to paint & drop another layer of green, but didn’t like that either. I decided to put the green and blue on the plate using a brayer, and print that way. I really liked the brayer (i.e. roller) marks! Will definitely utilize this technique more in future monotypes. Final:

I really miss this toy!!! I think it was called a “Squirrel Log” and we got it in the sale bin at Petsmart. It lasted a relatively long time (2 months or so) until Jack, for some reason, took a shining to ripping the plastic log into pieces and EATING them. So unfortunately, for the sake of his intestines, we had to toss it in the garbage. If anyone sees this toy around… please let me know!! I am dying to get another one (or 2, or 3)…

(Funny… I realized when making this monotype that the Squirrel Log had a striped tail… wouldn’t that make it a Raccoon Log? LOL!)