Buick Prints

This is a photo of a guy's setup for making woodblock prints on a large scale, using a bulldozer.  Go to the link to see more in-process pictures.



I did a version of this myself and called it 'Buick Prints' about ten years ago. The rented Buick worked well because I could set up my painting area on it's wide hood, quickly assemble the package of stuff to jam under the rear wheel and then easily jump in the car and slam it into reverse.  I sandwiched my inked leaves under fabric , then a layer of old blanket on the top and bottom, surrounded by two sheets of plywood covered in plastic sheeting.    With a bit of experimentation I got some interesting prints on linen, but as usual, when I do printing, the ones I 'think' are the best as prints are never the best ones to use making something.  

Here is a huge cut leaf philodendrum from my side yard.  I love these leaves because they last forever when cut so I always have one in a floor vase in the house-  they're free and pack a lot of whollop.  The print was done on linen using acrylic paint with extender, then machine quilted with rayon threads.  It's a pillow cover, about 26" square with Japanese fabric border and back.


The next one was done the same way, but the sea grape leaf elements were cut from several prints and added onto a master print after being backed and quilted with red rayon to duplicate the actual leaves.  Here's the whole thing, also 26" square.

The actual sea grape plant has leaves that start out bright red, then modify through dark reds to dark greens and on to brighter greens before turning khaki brown at the end.  I know that oils would have made better prints because the extender just didn't 'extend' the working time as much as I needed, and the paint was drying as fast as I could slap it on the leaves and jump in the car!  But over time I have gotten to really like the incompleteness of the images.

I had added 'Buick Printing' to my workshop list at one time, thinking it would b a really fun workshop, got hired to do it, and the day was rainy and cold so it got cancelled.  After gathering all that equipment and finding a suitable car and setting up work tables in a parking lot and then getting cancelled, I decided that perhaps there were too many variables to this project and dropped it from my list.  

Then a few years later I dropped the whole list!  I always felt guilty about teaching because I got so much from it right along with the students.  My biggest regret is not keeping a student list so I could be more in touch, but my biggest THRILL is when an old student comes up to me and introduces herself and says how much she liked the class or how much she learned or how it changed her direction.  Every once in awhile I get one of these 'bonus payments', like discovering someone set up a little trust fund for me long ago!  

So, maybe tomorrow I will talk about monoprints of the more common variety.

Oh, I almost forgot to announce that shipping children by US mail has been illegal since 1913, illustrated by this photo from the Smithsonian archives on flickr.