Steamroller Festival Print

Well, this is it, my linocut in the printing at the steamroller festival. It sure was fun!

Linocut for Steamroller Festival

Winnipeg Neighbourhood II.

Linocut.

32" x 40". 2010.

What a fun invention -- the steamroller festival. Tomorrow Martha Street Studio will close off Martha Street, rent a steamroller and print giant linocuts on the street. For the past two weeks I've been carving on my sheet of linoleum like crazy to finish it on time (thank God for audio books...). It actually went faster and easier than I thought thanks to my good carving tools and the hot plate, which helps to soften the lino when the wrists get too sore. Today I finally pulled my first successful test print (see image above). For those of you who don't know how a linocut works, here is the basic breakdown: first you carve an image into a linoleum plate with lino- or wood carving tools. Whatever you cut away will be white; wherever the surface remains intact ink will be rolled on and it will be black.

The image I worked with is another Winnipeg Neighbourhood. I've been wanting to work with the Neighbourhood I live in now for some time already. I didn't really want to work with it in etching, but I thought that the spacial breakdown of my etching Winnipeg Neighbourhood, which depicts houses from Dorchester Ave., McMillan Ave., and Wolseley would lend itself wonderfully for a linocut. I haven't worked much with this medium. I've done some small scale linocuts, mainly cards, but I've taught linocut for the past few years and now I finally got to try out all that good advice I always give to my students on a large scale piece. I always say that a great variety of textures makes linocuts interesting and somewhat breaks down the stark black and white contrasts by forming halftones. So I experimented a lot with different textures and patterns within the houses. These textures make the image quite busy, but the regularity of the houses and the pattern of the trees I find hold the image together. The streets depicted in my new piece are Jessie Ave., Warsaw Ave. and Mulvey Ave.

Last New Print - Hibernation

Hibernation.

Etching, Screen print, Hand Coloured.

30cmx30cm. 2010.

Just on time I finished another print for my show at McNally Robinson. I didn't want Holding On to stand so alone with its content, size and format and since I was planning on continuing the footprint series anyways I decided to do it now. Like Holding On, Hibernation is an older image I've worked with before in one of my paintings. I took the same motif and changed the composition somewhat. As usual, I think the print is more successful than the painting.

Hibernation is about my almost irresistible desire to go to sleep with the first snow and to wake up in spring. In the print, I wrapped myself in a blanket with memories of Paraguay and warmth.

Again, this print is a copper etching with a translucent blue layer screen-printed over top. The colours in the blanket are hand coloured. I was planning on adding blind embossment to create textures in the snow, but it got lost a bit with all the subtle etched softground textures that are on the plate already. It just seemed too much and I liked the image better without it.

I got a show at McNally Robinson

McNally Robinson Booksellers

presents

Miriam Rudolph

showing

Mapping Memories

Tuesday June 15th, 7:30 pm
Grant Park in Prairie Ink Restaurant

This is the latest installment in McNally Robinson’s Small Works Series, a monthly exhibition of works by Winnipeg artists at Prairie Ink Restaurant & Bakery in McNally Robinson Booksellers.McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park
1120 Grant Ave.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R3M 2A6

Asuncion

Asuncion.

Double Plate Colour Etching.

40cm x 60 cm. 2010.

Here it is: my new print of Asuncion. After a few not so successful attempts, today I finally got the registration of the two plates right. I'm very happy with the piece, but I did have to make the train station a light brown to balance the image even though it is a whitish building. As an artist I take the right to make subtle changes to reality.

Asuncion - Print in Progress

I thought you might be interested in what I am currently working on. I decided to make a memory map about Paraguay again, this time Asuncion (the capital of Paraguay). I love spending time in Asuncion, despite it being a rather noisy and smelly city. There is so much to see and to observe and in many ways Asuncion to me IS Paraguay with the slums lying right next to the presidential palace stretching all the way to the cathedral, poverty next to gorgeous architecture, an empty lot used as a soccer field, a peasant couple resting on a bench enjoying the ever refreshing Terere, the dogs roaming all the streets, vendors lining the streets with their traditional Paraguayan crafts and embroidery, a chipa vendor (chipaaa! chipaaa caliente!....chipa a mil!), demonstrators and defenders of freedom. Asuncion is so vibrant and full of life and there were a million little things I had to omit in my print.

Well, my print is in its second stage where I etched an aquatint (the tonal gradations) on the black plate. I still got more work to do on this plate since some of the dark greys and the blacks got a bit too dark for my taste. I tried out airbrushing an acrylic solution onto the plate for my aquatint and I'm very pleased with the result. We don't have a rosin box at the studio and I was never quite happy with the spray-paint aquatints. The airbrushed dot pattern is super fine and easy to apply evenly. I think I've found my perfect substitute for rosin aquatints.

Like Aregua, this print will be a double plate etching, meaning that I'm working on a second plate that will be printed in colour overlapping exactly with my black plate. That way I get some rich terracotta shades and a wide range of browns that will give this print more richness and life. The big white trees for example will, at the end, be full of reddish brown chivato blossoms and some of the buildings will be lightly pinkish brown. Well, I still got a lot of work ahead of me, but I hope to start printing some time next week.

2nd Biennal Footprint International

I am pleased to share with you the the great news that Holding On was accepted for the 2nd Biennal Footprint International at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut. Footprint International will open May 20th and continue till September 5th. The Juror for the exhibition was Anne Coffin, director of the International Print Center of New York.