version two of the last print

again, the difference is the inking -- both the color and the distribution of the ink accross the plate. I think I prefer this one, at least at this moment in time, but that can change minute to minute. I am left with another problem of where to "display" at least a few of these prints. Those of you who have followed me for a while know that wall space is limited. hmmmmmmmmmmm suggestions?

Last plate/print from the class

Most of the others are over on my photo blog, but the ones from the final class are here, so that I can talk about them a little. This is bigger, 8" by 10" and I also printed this one two ways so tomorrow you get to see the other inking. The plate was created from a collage of several pieces of transparency. I really liked the effect and also the off centeredness of it with the tape that held the whole thing together showing in the right had margin. Again, not sure where this is all going, but this class was great.

He might be a little creepy

or not. I am not sure. I made this plate several years ago but it was a 5" X 7" plate and there was a lot of context that meant nothing to anyone. SO while I was printing and had access to a wonderful guillotine I chopped him up. Actually, I chopped several of my old plates up to a square format. He is the only one I printed, however. I like a square format. I am not sure what I am going to do with these plates, but something will occur, I hope.

version two

I would be interested to hear which one you find more interesting, yesterday's version or today's version? I waffle. Hell, lately I AM a waffle, since they sent me home from the brunch on Sunday with a week's worth of leftover waffles and I am loving toasting them up and eating them. But I digress. Often.

today and tomorrow

I am showing you two versions of this print. The only difference is the inking, but I find them really different. I know enough now to be able to make plates from a lot of images, photos, collage, drawing etc etc etc. Where I feel at sea still is how to ink the plates to best effect. It is an itereative process, once you have explored how to ink the plates you can go back and explore how to make the plates better so they can be inked better, I think. Sigh, there is just so much to explore and the rabbit hole just goes on forever it seems.

yes, the clock is backwards

I still like the effect, despite the basic oops that resulted in the clock being backwards. Maybe I can play with this print some more, and I can make another plate with the clock the "correct" way, but in a way it is sort of down the rabbit hole with the clock reversed.

Remember the huge stairs?

They are trying to make them more.........attractive? It is going to take a lot more than pretty posters to get me to hike up all those stairs.

I made my bed this morning

I make it every morning.  Later, around noon,  I wandered into the bedroom.  Do you think Sienna is trying to tell me something?

The Wall Street Bull

This big statue of a bull is right in the middle of Wall Street. People like to be photographed sitting on it.

They like the horns and the powerful expression on his face.

Some of us, however, are interested in different parts of the bull.

Look! a bus full on nuns!

Well, not exactly, it was raining, and I know the second pic is blurry but don't they all look like a bunch of nuns?

I love New York

The other day I was at Times Square just wandering around and what should appear but a fashion show?

There is a long row of these mannikins just marching down the street where Mayor Bloomberg has managed, despite opposition, to create a pedestrian mall.

These pedestrian areas are full of benches and places to sit, but this is the first time I have seen them populated by Street Art figures.

I think what I love best about them is that despite my continual perusal of the news and blogs etc, the first I knew about them was when I happened on them. So much going on here, so little time to see it all!

The Printing Class

I really enjoyed the printing class and made a lot of plates.  There is a run of the ones I finished last week going on now over on the photo blog   What I can do next is for sure a thing of interest.  They don't offer a part 2, which is really too bad, as I wouldn't take part 1 again but I would take a part 2 if it was set up as a sort of independent study thing.

I am fortunate in having a black and white cat, who has served as a muse through this process.  here is a sample, more, one a day over at the other blog.

Also Near TImes Square

How long do you suppose the lingeres can linger? 25 cent Peeps certainly are time limited so you can't linger there long. On a more literary note, isn't this a miss-spelling? Shouldn't it be LingereEs? And are all the lingeres XXX? So many questions. How about those XXX toys?  How do you prove you are a VIP? I guess the final one is if/when did they realize how this was supposed to be spelled and did they just shrug and keep on dishing out those 25cent peeps?

NY Street Art

spray stenciled on the sidewalk neat Times Square .... Beam me up, Scotty?

last print for this week's class

I loved this green once the print was done. It adds to the ambiguity...

and this is also a rant so there are no pictures.

back in April I documented the Post Office on 180th street and how they did not seem to actually deliver packages.

http://abovethegwb.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-us-post-office-should-just-give-it.html

Well, they struck again this week.  This is now the 3rd occurrence of the exact same scenario so I will summarize what I believe happens so I can get to the really annoying stuff.

• The post office at 180th street receives a package from a sender.
• They enter it into the electronic system and say they tried to deliver it and left a pink slip
• The package never leaves the post office but the electronic system tells the possible recipient that it did and no one could receive the package.  
• This is where they make a mistake because the message also says a pink slip was left.
• The next day they send the pink slip out with the carrier, dated the day before and he/she leaves the pink slip. 
• The customer finally gets the pink slip and tries to get the package by going to the post office
• If they are lucky, it is there and it gets resolved.  If they are me, it doesn't work that way.

I got the electronic notice on Monday and the pink slip, dated the 9th, on the 10th.  Since this has happened to me twice before, I call the post office and after repeating "Customer Service" about 5 times I get a real person.  I explain to them that this has happened before and that I want to report it again and also that I do NOT want the package sent out for redelivery tomorrow, as I will trudge over and pick it up.  I get a complaint number. The person I am speaking to is NOT at the 180th street post office, they seem to have an unlisted number and are not even on the USPS website when you search for my zip code. 

Today I go to the post office.  There are 10 people in line for package pickup.  There is NO ONE in line to mail a letter or get any other service  There are 3 people servicing the line that is empty and 1 person serving the package pickup line.  It takes her an average of 6 minutes (I timed it) to find or not find a package.  She does not find 4 out of the 10 people ahead of me.  When I get to the window she does not find my package and says I will have to come back.  I asked for a supervisor.  There was some back and forth about why I wanted one and I said you couldn't find my package and I had requested that it not go out for redelivery.

The remarkably surly supervisor arrived and hollered at me several times, refused to come out and speak to me and to the woman behind me who was there for the second day looking for a package also.  At one point she told me she would "take care of me!"  and not in a nice way.  Then she disappeared came back and said is this a foreign package, I said no, Massachusetts.  She said "You have the wrong number."  (there was no number on the pink slip and I had written the complaint number on it for reference)  I said that is my complaint number, I don't have a number for the package.  At that point she disappeared again and I called the customer service number.  Fortunately I was on line with a real person when she returned to scream at me again and he heard it all.  I told her who was online, but I guess she didn't believe me.  

I still don't have the package.  It is, according to them, out for re-delivery.  Sigh.  If you believe that, the GWB is for sale and you can buy it. 

I am going to forward both of these blog entries to the Post Office Complaint line if there is such a thing.  There may be a phone call in my future from someone's boss, but I doubt it.   There!  I feel a whole lot better now and the person I reached on the phone was actually quite polite.  

Printing class results

This is obviously from a photo. I took it from the balcony of the Metropolitan Museum of Art one evening. I loved then and still love the ambiguity of the figures and their movement. This is the first print from this plate. One of the things I learned last night was to print black first to just check out the plate.

Don't clean out the black ink after printing, just move on to color. Tomorrow is the "moved on to color" print. Stay tuned...

Printing Class Results

Romeo has turned out to be a big muse for my printing class activities. Partly because he is so elegant in black and white. Here we go again This was done - printed - really quickly. I wanted to see how it looked and I haven't had time to play with better inking etc. but I think the plate needs some cropping.. we shall see where this one goes over the next - and alas last - week.

My favorite so far.....

The goal of last week's class was to get a handle on inking plates and on chine colle. I have always loved the dimension that some really pretty papers can bring to interact with printmaking and this was my first one in a long time. I made one other plate this week but was too rushed to print it. Of course that might have been due to the time I spent admiring this one!

Week Four

The first print from this week's plate was on the right, and though I like it, the top of the Flatiron Building was too indistinct for me. Sheila, my instructor gave me some insight into inking the plates, and the image on the right was the result. Great improvement and I learned enough tricks to make it better next time.

plate for the angel

you can see it, but it just isn't as pretty as the high relief plates are.  I am planning to explore both types over the next two weeks.  Once this class is done I am going to have to try to figure out how to do more of this.  I am seriously hooked!

Yesterday's Photo Reference to Hokusai......

Just a note on Yesterday's picture over at the photo site ... It really DOES look like Hokusai doesn't it?  More than some of the other sightings I have had of oddities seen from the corner of your eyes..

If there are new readers out there, you don't know that I see Frogs in the subway ceilings, Bambi in packages of hummus and a variety of animals in subway walls.  

I find myself pondering why these things are revealed to me, but at least I have enough sense to share them here and not light candles and try to sell tickets.  I am sure you are all heaving sighs of relief...

The newest print

If you have seen what I have done over the past couple of years, you will recognize this image. He is an angel from a cemetery in Binghamton New York, where I did a lot of photography when my parents were living. I haven't been back in nearly 5 years and am not likely to go again, but this little guy has been one of my standard images and now I have a printing plate of him to use whenever I want. I must admit I love the way it came out.

The plates for images with greyscale printing capability are not nearly as pretty as the black and white ones, but I guess we are not supposed to be in this for the plates, but rather for the prints. Plate was hard to photo, maybe tomorrow?