Adventures In Drypoint, redux

Back in July I promised a drypoint etching on this blog (thought I’d forgotten, eh?). Well, here it is! I promise, I deliver–even if the delivery comes 7 months later. But hey, this is why my readers have to faithfully keep checking in on my little blog. You never know what you might find next, amiright?

Ok, down to business.

“Lora 2” – drypoint etching on Stonehenge paper & Akua inks. ©Katie Kath 2023.

One of the reasons why this post was so long in the works was because after an initial failed attempt (and two sore wrists later) at doing a drypoint print sans printing press, I was simply fed up with how limited my printmaking sessions could be without an etching press to do the job.

I’ve been dabbling in various printmaking methods for years–mostly linoleum and woodblock prints, which are pretty forgiving when it comes to hand-pressing–but I have always ended up disgruntled from constantly being hobbled by the nature of the beast: hear me out! There are some printing techniques that are, in my opinion, unachievable without a press, especially if you want to save your wrists and your sanity (and since I’m a mother and I’ve already lost half of my sanity I would like to keep the rest of it, thank you very much!)

The finished sketch of “Lora”, ready to be engraved into plexiglass.

Pictured above are a few process shots from my first attempt to hand-press this etching. Even when using thin Japanese kozo paper, which works quite well for block prints, the print came out blotchy and uneven. Comparing the etching plate (left) to the final print (right), you can see how so much of the ink was still left on the plate, even after intense rubbing with the baron AND a metal spoon.

So, I bit the bullet and finally did what I’ve been wanting to do for years: I bought a small press from Blick.

Meet my new baby, Little Mr. 906.

Is it a Takach press? Only in my dreams. (Oh, how I lust after those presses!) But let me tell you, this little beauty has turned out to be quite the gem with a fairly inexpensive price tag. Last evening I tore some nice, thick Stonehenge paper, let it soak a bit, and ran three prints through the press and so far this bad boy does deliver. Behold!

I decided to tint the last one with some colored pencils after the print dried overnight because, why not? The worst I could do was screw up a print, and obviously I can now make many more without the fear of sore wrists hanging over my head.

I think I’ve definitely fallen head over heels for that little blue press. I cannot wait to do more printing! As always, stay tuned.

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A Wee Cuppa

“Small Cup” © Katie Kath 2022. Do not reproduce without permission.

This little china cup, odd though it may be, embodies everything I associate with my Grandma. In fact, if I had to choose only one thing out of all of her many collections of objects (for she had many tchotchkes too numerous to recount here, from beer steins with painted faces lining the top of a china cabinet to a small collection of glass elephants, trunks rearing up at the ever-silent, antique cuckoo clock hanging in the hallway, its tiny bird patiently waiting to reanimate once again) I would choose this cup over anything else.

We didn’t get to visit that often since Grandma lived so far from us, so when we did it was all the more special, and I like to think she marked the occasion as well, letting me drink my morning milk from the china “milkman cup” as she called it.

I don’t know much about the cup, (or the whole set, for that matter, for I own it in its entirety now) other than that it was made in Japan, possibly in the 50’s or 60s, but it doesn’t matter that much to me whether it’s vintage or antique, worth a lot of money or chump change: the memories it holds would fill a hundred cups of its kind.

It also makes a pretty rad little still life.

A Bit of Opera

“Dreamland” – pastel on paper. Katie Kath 2022. Do not copy or reproduce without permission.

Tonight’s drawing of my snoozing son is inspired by a sweet aria entitled Evening Prayer from the opera, “Hansel and Gretel,” by Engelbert Humperdinck. (And no matter how beautiful the music is, I cannot for the life of me get over that name. What did his mother call him? Lil Dinkey? What did his friends call him? Bert? Did he have any friends named Ernie?)

I digress. To the point, it’s a wonderful lullaby and a dreamy tune, with lyrics which I will inscribe herein:

When at night I go to sleep, Fourteen angels watch do keep, Two my head are guarding, Two my feet are guiding, Two are on my right hand, Two are on my left hand, Two who warmly cover, Two who o’er me hover, Two to whom tis given to guide my steps to heaven.

Sleeping softly then it seems, Heaven enters in my dreams; Angels hover round me, Whisp’ring they have found me; Two are sweetly singing, Two are garlands bringing, Strewing me with roses, As my soul reposes. God will not forsake me when dawn at last will wake me.

Sticky August Sketching

“Bethany And Her Daughter” – graphite. @Katie Kath 2022.

I got a nice opportunity this morning to do some sketching from life when my friend Bethany and her daughter, N., came over to feed our chickens some leftovers. The girls (the chickens) know them by now and will stampede them as they walk through our backyard gate like ravenous, feathery, pint-sized heat-seeking missiles that haven’t eaten for weeks.

It’s always an interesting challenge when drawing from life in a setting that is absent from the comforts of air-conditioned interior spaces with convenient places on which to sit–the act of being outside in sticky humidity only August can achieve, balancing a sketchbook with no lap for aid while swatting away mosquitoes and sweating in places you never even knew you could sweat somehow drums the drawing experience into your brain, engraving it into your memory in the way photos cannot: because I drew this series of sketches, I can promise you I will remember this day specifically, how hot it was, and that fact that it rained the night before.

That’s the power of drawing, folks.

An Experiment in Engraving

And now for something completely different.

“Skull and Orange” – pencil on paper, © Katie Kath 2022.

I’ve recently been intrigued by dry point etching. Specifically, a linocut/etching mashup technique I recently stumbled upon while researching all things printmaking. I’m so intrigued, in fact, that I am going to give it a whirl. Here goes, folks.

Now: a word about this process. Up until now I have posted one completed drawing on the blog every other day or so, and it’s been very good for my artistic practice, to be sure. However, a technique like this will require more time, and more episodic postings because etching and linocut are both tedious and I only work for a few hours or less in the evening.

Honestly, embarking on something like this will also be good for me artistically, as it will get me used to breaking up my art-making process into bite-sized manageable chunks I can look forward to each night. This way, I can feel more confident about taking on bigger and bigger projects. EVERYONE WINS.

Ok, enough of that. Let’s talk process.

So, the first thing to do for an etching is to make a drawing of what the etching will look like. Then, when you are satisfied with your sketch, you place a piece of plexiglass, mylar, or other clear plastic that can be easily scratched into, on top of your drawing and begin the crosshatch your darks. (More on that later.)

So: here is the finished sketch I made of a little still-life I set up on my drafting table. If any of my former students are reading this blog, which I highly doubt they are, they would immediately recognize this skull and maybe even shudder a little at the memory of having to draw it a bazillion times.

But you know, this llama skull is cool. I bought it because it’s fun to draw, and I know I could draw it a bazillion times and probably not get too sick of it. Probably.

Drawing this skull last evening also told me that I definitely need to acquire more animal skulls. (I mean, can you have too many?? The answer is no.) One of my former professors had a cat skull and a horse skull, both of which I often looked upon with envy.

What kind of skull do YOU think should I get next?

Selfie in Sfumato

“Self Portrait” – conte crayon on toned paper. © Katie Kath 2022. Do not reproduce without permission.

No, I didn’t get contacts, I ditched those back in college. Drawing glasses can be a real pain and sometimes they just doesn’t look good in a drawing, so, there you have it: me, sans spectacles.

I wanted to make a drawing using a “sfumato” technique, mostly because a) I love how it sounds and b) I love how classical it always makes a drawing look, and I was in a classical sort of mood.

I actually just about gave up on this piece because I wasn’t sure if I liked the direction in which it was going (and am still not sure how I feel about the finished product) but I figured I got this far so I might as well finish the thing because any drawing is good practice.

Possum Watch

Y’all, we got possums in the crawlspace.

Aside from the fact that the above sentence sounds like either a bad book title or something a hillbilly might tell his doctor when asked what is ailing him, we do, in fact, have a whole family of possums lurking in our crawlspace.

We first caught a possum on a Ring camera we have outside, and after several nights we noticed one possum became two, then four, then six, and then one large one started carrying some nesting material back and forth with its tail. Obviously, this posse of possums found a great piece of real estate and they were MOVIN’ IN.

We will probably end up calling someone to relocate them, but in the meantime we had a fun date hanging out back in the cooling breeze of a summer sunset, waiting to see if any of our new possum friends decided to poke its head around the corner and greet us.

Spoiler: none of them did.

Keep It Simple, Sweetie

“Connie Seated II” – marker in Strathmore sketchbook. © Katie Kath 2022. Do not reproduce without permission.

I love getting out all of my toys to draw.

It can be very hard sometimes to limit myself to just a few implements, and there is something to be said for “kitchen sink drawings,” however, it is often best to just grab a couple of markers or a pen or a pencil or whatever is in front of you and go to it, especially when time is of the essence.

For example: this drawing was done in about 10 minutes flat, as my friend sat on the couch and tried to distract my toddler while he was angrily flinging books in my face, slapping my knees with toys, and getting increasingly more agitated at my lack of attention.

Needless to say, I drew FAST.

And honestly? I think this is one of my better drawings. So: once again, less is more, and I’m back to trying to heed the advice of Martin Salisbury of letting the “approach serve the drawing’s purpose” and no more.

Get Your Friends To Sit For You

And I don’t mean babysitting!

“Connie Seated” – charcoal on Strathmore paper. ©Katie Kath 2022. Do not use without permission.

Many people erroneously think they would make terrible models.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” they say, and list off a myriad of excuses, “I’m not attractive enough. I’m too tall/short/old/petite, I don’t like my face/arms/flab/wrinkles/scars”…you name it.

But I’m convinced something magical happens when a person is drawn.

One of my college professors once told me about a figure drawing session in which the model, after taking a look at all of the artist’s studies of her, said, “Wow, is that me? I didn’t know I looked that good!” To which, everyone responded emphatically, “UM, YES! You do look that good!”

And guess what? The model was a regular person. not a swimsuit model, not a runway model, not a Maybelline model, not super young, not super fit, just….an average person with an average life.

We artists see the beautiful in the average. So go ahead, artists: talk your friends into sitting for you in a drawing session. They may be pleasantly surprised.

The Beauty of The Lowly Pen

“Joy Ride” – Pen and ink on Strathmore paper. © Katie Kath 2022. Do not use without permission.

For today’s sketch I turned to a favorite go-to implement: a smorgasbord of pens.

Simple but mighty, ink pens are one of my top choices for sketch materials. In fact, when teaching Drawing I or Intro classes, the first thing I do is banish pencils (at least, mechanical or similar types with erasers. Charcoals and chunky, non-erasable pencils were allowed, but I digress) much to the chagrin of the students. The “no pens allowed” rule is actually a technique I stole from a former Drawing I instructor and it’s one of the best ideas I think anyone has every had.

The reasoning behind this is that it’s easy for the eraser to become a crutch to any artist. Obsessing over details and the tendency to focus on “mess-ups” instead of what is truly important about a piece–composition, technique, a conveyed emotion or feeling–can quickly overtake an artist and thus sabotage the visual integrity of a drawing.

So there you have it, folks! A quick, frizzy sketch of two kids and a bike in motion, no erasing, using several of my favorite pens: Zig Mangaka 2, Sakura Microperm, gray tone Mildliner, and Le Pen, all from my absolute-favorite pen shop: The Goulet Pen Co. They even include a DumDum pop with your order! (At least, they used to.)