I'm getting ready for our small works show at the studio, which normally falls around the holiday season. This year, we are calling it Mini-Malism. Each artist in my studio is making 4 3" x 3" prints with a subject and technique of her own choosing. I've been playing around with collagraphs. My first few attempts at collagraphs were quite successful so I though I would revisit the medium. The problem is that the blocks are so pretty that I'm hesitant to smear a bunch of black etching ink on them now. I may just have to keep them for a while and look at them!
Don't miss Mini-Malism at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, Studio 325, from November 1-December 31, 2009. We're open from 11-6 most days.
Today I printed my charming little collagraph blocks. I smeared a dull grey glob of etching ink all over those pretty colors, wiping them down with tarlatan (a stiff kind of cheesecloth), rubbing them with my palm, wiping them again with newsprint, and finally running them through an etching press with damp paper. The prints came out looking something like blurry fossils on a 
rock. I let the prints dry and then painted them with watercolors and they came alive again. I also enhanced the prints with a graphite pencil and a grey colored pencil to make the images stand out. And in the end, I even managed to clean most of the grey ink off the blocks and they are almost as good as new.
One evening, I went to a book signing for my favorite author in the whole world, Diana Gabaldon, who has just written a new book in her Outlander series, entitled An Echo in the Bone. She was fantastic - funny, witty, earthy and a bit bawdy, exactly what I'd hoped she would be like. The crowd in the theater was entranced by her, me included. 
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