Condition Ashland

Well, it's getting to be that time when I can go skateboarding outside again. Yesterday was especially nice, but I used the sunlight to print some cyanotypes instead. To the right is a shot of me in my friend Logan's workspace preparing paper for the process. Something I especially like about the cyanotype printing is that you can get really nice washed edges by applying the solution with a brush. Logan has also acheived some nice results by using a puddle pusher, which I suppose would be the photography world's counterpart to the scoopcoater.
The cyanotype process is rather easy, and it's a form of contact printing, meaning the film is placed directly on the coated paper and exposed to a light source. I made a negative by inverting a page from my sketchbook and xeroxing it onto acetate. We sandwiched the film and paper between two sheets of glass and exposed in direct sunlight. After exposure, we rinsed and dried the prints. I was very pleased with the results, and since I was working from an inverted pen drawing, the high contrast proved to be rather easy to print.
Expect a small edition of hand-coated, sun-exposed cyanotypes in the coming days. Ha, once a printmaker, always a printmaker.
Here is a more detailed process in the gigposters.com forums.

I printed posters for one of my all time favorites, Propagandhi earlier this week. I've been exploring clayboard as a medium lately. I love drawing with ink, but I also enjoy working subtractively. Clayboard is a remarkably versatile drawing surface, making it pretty easy to work with once you start to get a feel for it. Kathleen Judge and Dan Grzeca are two very talented Chicago poster artists who use a lot of clayboard for their drawing. Below is the final printed Propagandhi poster (original drawing was ink on clayboard) and an illustration I completed this week for the band, Caustic Casanova.


Lots of new art prints, cyanotypes, and a poster or two are well on the way, so I hope you'll check back soon!