Peter and Caitlin gave a printing demonstration for the students at the studio. Anyone who is interested in printmaking is welcome to join as well. It’s great to watch Peter and Caitlin, who have been printing for so long, work. Their movements are efficient and graceful.
All of the printmaking classes went to the Bowdoin College Museum of Art today to look at Marvin Bileck and Emily Nelligan’s prints as well as Peter’s portfolio.
This week, Peter Pettengill and his assistant, Caitlin, will produce a large etching in collaboration with Barbara Putnam. Barbara has recently returned from an expedition to the Arctic, and her print is inspired by the magnificence of the northern landscape.
Peter and Caitlin will use multiple plates to create this print. The key plate, which contains Barbara’s drawing, is shown above. Color will be added using additional plates (one for each color).
After a busy first day at the studio, Peter gave a talk at the Visual Arts Center, which was attended by Bowdoin students as well as members of the local printmaking community. During his talk, Peter described his experience working with artists such as Sol LeWitt, Louise Bourgeois, and Walton Ford, among others. His job as a master printer is to enable artists from every discipline produce a print. Although he claims no authorship in the works, he is necessary to their existence.
The final day of the Marvin Bileck Printmaking Project was the most relaxed out of the week.
Breakfast was held in the studio as Liz signed her prints.
A few local artists and Mark Wethli stopped by to visit and see the final result–seven pages rippling across the wall, progressing from a warm brown to a cool blue.
Day four: the final day of printing!
Students worked busily all day to finish the second half of the edition. All that is left for tomorrow is cutting and signing the prints. Parents are invited to stop by the studio in the morning to see the prints and partake in a breakfast snack.
Printmaking I visited Hawthorne and Longfellow Library to view some of the artist’s books from the special collections. These books were made using various printmaking techniques, and represented a range of styles–from Michael Mazur’s large-scale prints depicting scenes from Dante’s Inferno to Karen Bleitz’s machine-like book, The Mechanical Word.
Day three went swimmingly well! We are halfway through printing the edition, and the day ended in a celebratory note with pizza from Flipside.
Liz demonstrated how to print using photopolymer plates. Her images are made up of ink wash drawings that she’s resized and layered using Photoshop. Some of the printing ink has transparent medium mixed into it, which helps to carry some of the qualities of ink wash into the finished prints.
In terms of printing, it’s not so different from printing using copper plates, but the photopolymer plates feel more delicate. One of their advantages is that they don’t need to be deoxidized.
Both printmaking classes helped print the proofs today, and then tried to decide which image they want for the print they’ll get to keep at the end–a very difficult task.
The paper was cut, the pigments were mixed,
The tarlatan readied and the fancy press fixed.
Now we’re all set to print and print and print.
