My First Giclee

Joma and I were wandering around Kaiser Permanente Hospital the other day (while Dzyiadzy had a quick routine eye exam) and I noted, on the walls of the halls, some art work whose medium was called "Giclee." (Kaiser has some really, really absorbing art on its walls, displaying local artists' work.)

I was impressed with some of it, but I had no idea what "giclee" was. So I Googled it when we came home. Giclee is an art form, recognized (named?) in 1991. It involves a print of an original work, enhanced by application of other media, such as paint, pastels, pencil, ink, whatever.

HAD to try it out, so I printed out a picture of one of my corn crops in the past, one in which I had leached out much of the color to give a shady look to it. Then I added a couple yellow/orange values to it, some purple, and a bit of green. I was thrilled with the result, even though Bernie viewed it and was unable to see where I had added anything. (It's subtle, okay?)

He went on to snark about "giclee" meaning "pintura por los numeros" in Spanish, which was rather rude, but kind of funny, too.

The main drawback I see is the cost of printer cartridges, but it was fun to add my own highlights to my own photo and come up with something a bit different. I have another print waiting for me on the work desk, but tomorrow is tentatively "oils" day, and I plan to stink up the studio with solvents on multiple canvases, throw convention and decorum to the wind, and paint like a maniac.

The original plan was to spend part of Sunday afternoon doing the cover illustration for the Piker Press, but once I got out to the studio, I was too content with the idea of not working on a Sunday, and so opted to play with my watercolors again.

The online watercolor class had a bit in it about using wax paper to produce texture. It didn't do much for my cheapie kids' washes in blue and green, so I crumpled the wax paper, dripped some purple, blue and green onto it, and applied it to the paper, which was Bienfang cold press 140 lb, not that I know what that means. It looks much more interesting close up, so feel free to click on the image and examine it more closely.

While I was waiting for the two sloppy pieces of quasi-art to dry, I indulged my nastiest current habit: reading NFL articles and their attendant message boards. Today's treat was a story announcing that the Broncos had signed Caleb Hanie as Peyton Manning's backup. 28 pages of comments ranged from applauding Hanie's skills and the wisdom of Broncos' management to bitter predictions of a Broncos losing season after Manning gets wrecked again and Hanie can't figure out whether to throw with his hands or with his feet. From "Elway was a moron to get rid of Tim Tebow!" to "Tim Tebow was a hack who has no place in the NFL!" the commentary ran on and on like a vicious-tearful-accusatory-flirtatious soap opera, and as I was all alone in the studio, I was free to read it all without having any other member of the family cast a disgusted eye upon me.

Well, except Howie, but he didn't know what I was reading, he was just disgusted because I wasn't taking him for a walk.

Using tube paints (equally cheap, I might add) I put some swaths of color on a piece of dry Strathmore cold press 140 lb paper, and did the wax paper experiment again. Much more interesting result.

I can see images in the latter piece that make me want to try to draw a picture out of the mess. Is that valid art, or is that just a senior citizen kid in an unformed art exercise?



Yet why should I worry if it is? Haven't I been yapping for years about always feeling compelled to have my art be marketable or representational or "proper?"

How many years do I have left? Wow, probably not as many as I have toes and fingers. I think I have to take the opportunity to play with art a little before I run out of time, and stop listening to my mother's voice in the back of my head, the voice that abhors abstract or unpretty art.

Watercolors rock!

Today's Mess

Over the weekend, John's computer got hacked by some asshole in Germany, the passwords to every damned thing in the house with the exception of the toaster had to be changed, the router stopped talking to all the computers, and then my printer stopped talking to my computer.

All of that made my work with the Piker Press get backed up so bad I had a full day's work today. Which isn't bad, but I really wanted to play with this watercolor thing again. I just had to wait until after seven pm to begin.

I added the blue wash to the branches pic on the right; I played with some more washes and paint daubs on most of the other stuff; and tried a bit of representational art with the bell, just to see if I could do more than washes.

Bernie and Alex liked the bell.

Close-ups of the rest are on my Flickr account.

It was fun, and I think I may even have learned something today. Indeed, at one point I got so enthused I knocked that brown drawing board right off the work table, dented one corner, and slopped paint all over lots of things. Tomorrow I want to do the trunks of the trees in the blue wash pic.