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Writer's pictureKhiri Lee

Stamps, Printmaking, and Primary Colors

I am currently enrolled in an advanced studio course through the Art House. My wonderful instructor Rebecca challenged me to think more seriously about the color palettes I was working with. The pieces I brought in for the midterm critique were half finished and all across the board in terms of size, color, narrative, and so on. There was very little cohesion, except that you could see my hand in all of them. Our small group has an exhibition coming up at the end of June so I wanted to challenge myself to create more cohesion. The pieces I liked most from the critique were blue and yellow. I also had several works with vibrant pink. Primary colors are a tried and true combination for visual impact, so I decided to push that line of thought further. I was curious to see where it would take me.


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Above are the results from tonights exploration into the primary world. After making a lot of mess with water, acrylic paint, linoleum stamps, and different papers I was pretty pleased with the results. The works on the right edge of my desk were from a previous exploration with speedball inks on watercolor paper. I liked the way the watercolor paper affected the texture of the printing. However I wanted to add more color. The acrylic paint reacted in a really interesting way with the speedball. It pulled the speedball away and only printed around it, creating a lot of depth in the prints. Here are more detailed shots: #gallery-831-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-831-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; } #gallery-831-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-831-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */


All of these prints were created with two linoleum stamps that I made myself. The larger stamp is of a larkspur (left), and the smaller is a pair of daffodils (below).  I added a before and after print of the daffodil on some shiny paper. The stamps didn’t print very well on the shiny paper, probably because it was very slick. I didn’t use any black on the shiny paper either to see how the contrast worked.


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Before



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After


The third experiment I did was on rice paper. The results were pretty messy but I still liked how they came out. I started by wetting the paper in water mixed with acrylic. Because acrylic doesn’t mix with water very well it created these interesting splotchy patterns. The rice paper was also slightly waxy so in some places it resisted getting damp. When I printed on the damp paper with patches of paint it created all sorts of different effects. It was really hard to predict what was going to happen. The amount of paint on the stamp, the amount of water on the paper, and the density of the paint already applied in the area all had interesting and unpredictable effects.

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My original intent was to created these images and then deconstruct them for a larger piece on Canvas that I have also started. Unfortunately I quite like the way a lot of them turned out and I’m not sure I could take an Exacto knife to them. I will sleep on it and let you know how things turn out.

And as a bonus to all the cool art I created, I also got a lot of paint in my hair and on my face. I feel like a real artist whenever I get paint all over. It means I really sunk into the process. Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below. I would love feedback on the issue of deconstruction. Thanks!

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