Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Progression

Things just keep looking up!

We obtained our occupational license! Yay!!  It was a lot easier than we thought, for sure.

The art market we participated in was great!  Granted, we only sold a couple things, BUT we did get a better idea of the public's opinion and we handed out quite a few contact cards.  We made our booth fee back, which honestly was the one thing that HAD to happen for us to be happy.  Knowing it was a very small, quaint market, we really didn't expect to have a huge turnaround on our inventory.  The final decision is to do more markets; The ones where we can actually make sales.

First booth EVER!  It is indeed a work in progress.
Axiom applied for a spot at one of the upcoming RAW Artists showcases.  We were invited to join July's group of artists so we'll be there on Thursday, July 11th exhibiting & selling our jewelry.  Things are happening and we are excited for what the rest of the year brings to us.

The artist collective I spoke of in my last post......yeah, I'm joining it.  How can I NOT do something like that?!  I'm currently waiting to meet with them to discuss my work/process/aspirations.  Their interest in me mainly lies around me as a printmaker and I intend on keeping it that way.  It's about time my prints get out there.
Booth shot from the RAW Artists Showcase on May 24th.
I want to do a few mezzotints.  For those of you on the outside looking in, mezzotint is genre of intaglio printmaking (which requires an artist to incise, or etch, an image onto a metal plate).  Mezzotint is a member of this family, but you do not have to use acid to create the image.  Instead, a tool, called a rocker, is "rocked" across a plate, creating thousands of tiny dots.  These tiny dots result in a completely black-toned image when printed.  The magic happens when a burnisher is rubbed across these tiny dots, strategically flattening them. This is how the image appears.  It's like covering a piece of paper with graphite, then creating an image using an eraser, essentially working from dark to light instead of light to dark.  Most printmakers do not have it in them to complete a mezzotint.  It is very time consuming.  Since I'm a process-oriented printmaker, it only seems natural for me to experiment with the art form.  The resulting variants in tonality are the closest thing to achieving photo-realism in printmaking.  Maybe screenprinting can be a close second, but not quite like mezzotint.  Seriously.  Google "Carol Wax" or "Frederick Mershimer".  You will never get over  how beautiful and rich their prints are.

My problem is obtaining the rocker.  Those suckers are $120.00!!  All in due time.



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