Rule of Thirds
This week marked the completion of a suite of 6 new prints at Santo Press. The process was quite involved and complicated. I first made a series of 11 gouache paintings using a rainbow of colors in series of 3 bands of stripes. This led me to consider making a print of the bands of stripes. I carved a piece of linoleum with 30 stripes and printed it by hand in my studio in black ink. The flat color looked very nice, but it didn’t have the texture/tonality I wanted to achieve.
I decided to make a rubbing of the linoleum block (with a black crayon) which gave me the texture I wanted. Several rubbings of the linocut were made and then photographed and stacked vertically in Photoshop. They were then manipulated and cleaned as much as possible. My manipulations looked good to me, but when it came time to actually create high res digital files to use as the cutting matrix for both laser-cut and photpolymer plates they were not usable. Brent took over and did a much better job. No mystery there…he has mad computer skills and I am merely a novice.
There are two suites of Rule of Thirds prints; each set has a 1-color print (black and white) and two multicolor prints. Rule of Thirds I, II and III are printed with a key block (laser-cut MDF) printed on top of 3 different colored bands of flat color. Rule of Thirds IV, V, and VI are 3-color photopolymer relief prints. All 6 are printed in an edition of 10, image size 12″ x 18″ on Somerset paper 22″ x 15″.
Below are some photos to give you a sense of how this suite of prints developed from paintings to finished prints.
One of a series of 11 gouache Stripe paintings.
The first hand-pulled linocut I printed in my studio. Unique print, 2016, 12″ x 18″ on Kitikata paper.
One of the many rubbings made from the linocut. Don’t even ask how many of these I made before I was satisfied!
2 (of the eventual 3 colors per print) to proof at Santo Press. The color bands were printed on top of the key to aid in registration and to get a good sense of what the colors looked like with black.
Color mixing at Santo Press for Rule of Thirds III.
More color mixing at Santo Press for Rule of Thirds editions V and VI shown in conjunction with striped gouache paintings.
Rule of Thirds I, II, III, IV, V, VI; 2016. Grid of all 6 editions.