August 6, 2013

Some New Potato Prints


Untitled 31, ink on Twinrocker paper; 2 panels, each 15 x 7 1/8 in.


I worked on these prints during the same recent session that I made the cardboard print From a Yellow Circle. I had a lot of blue and yellow ink on my palette from that project, so I added the third primary, red, in order to have a wider range of color. Sometimes I want to keep things very simple, as with this diptych: just one circle per panel. I used the same piece of potato, cut into an approximate circle, for each panel, dipping them differently into the ink. Now here's a technical term: I schmooshed colors together. 


Untitled 31 detail


I realized it might be helpful to show some details of these prints. Here you can see the complexity of color, all chance happenings.


Untitled 32, ink on Twinrocker paper, 14 x 10 in.


This print began its life as a horizontal image, then I mistakenly overprinted the yellow circle and put the blue one too close to it. I happened to turn it vertically and thought it worked this way.


Untitled 33, ink on Twinrocker paper, 6 5/8 x 15 in.


Untitled 33, detail


Here, a bar and circle, a bar and triangle. I have a lot of tear-off pieces of paper from my drawings, which is why you see quite a few prints on Twinrocker paper. It's a handmade watercolor paper and I like its texture and weight for potato prints.


Untitled 34, ink on Nishinouchi paper, 20 x 14 in.


This piece might be a little too much like a smiley face, but if so, it's a wry, off kilter smile.


Untitled 35, ink on Masa dosa paper, 17 x 22 1/2 in.


Long shapes dipped into color curve and float down the sheet of paper, the darkest red adding weight at bottom.


Untitled 36, ink on Masa dosa paper, 15 1/4 x 10 3/4 in.


Untitled 36, detail


I think this is a little to Christmas-y, but I like the transparency of the triangles as they sit above the red line. 




I put the new prints up in the studio with a couple of earlier ones, and alongside some hooked wool drawings, to give a sense of their relative sizes. I think there's a similar sensibility, a feeling of playfulness, in the hooked wool drawings and potato prints.


2 comments:

  1. I absolutely love Untitled 31 - the simplicity, the balance, but not, and the smooshing! I also, like you am drawn to the translucency and scumbled (?) look of the paint especially in the green triangles.

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    1. Thanks, Olga, I'm happy that you enjoy 31, and the qualities of the ink in these works.

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