Dusk 4.2008

This print titled Dusk is a three-color woodcut.

Pecking Order 3.2008

This two-color woodcut titled Pecking Order was derived from an old sketchbook drawing. I have been revisiting older sketchbooks, and the ideas and drawings that are floating around within them, to see if they still hold up to my current thoughts and concerns. It has really been rewarding to approach these older ideas and sketches with a new perspective and to finally commit them to a finished work.

Geinformeerdo 2.2008

This woodcut is titled Geinformeerdo (Dutch for "enlightened"). The image is derived from a sketch that I made of a man on a train in the Netherlands.


This is a two-color woodcut. The image above illustrates the woodcut process. Image 1: the block is 1/3 cut. Image 2: the block is fully cut except for a few areas which were cut out during the proofing process. Image 3: the block is inked for printing. Image 4: the first color has been printed from block 2 (not shown). Image 5: the final print.

Crest 1.2008

The challenge has begun.
This woodcut is titled Crest.



This is a three-color woodcut utilizing the paper tone as a fourth color. The lightest ink was printed first and the darkest last. The process is illustrated above.

Printmaking Challenge

My art production has been at an all time low this Summer. Maybe it is the heat, maybe I have hit a creative block. It is frustrating. I have been reading up on some of the greats in printmaking, The German Expressionists, which has started a fire in me to produce again.

My goal is to produce at least one print per week for a year. These will include multi-color woodcuts, etchings and monoprints. I hope to exceed the goal and create more than one print per week and if I’m lucky maybe I can sneak a few paintings into the mix as well. Hopefully this site will be updated with new images weekly instead of being considered a “false start”.

New Drypoint

Mark is a recently completed chine colle drypoint. This print is personally significant because it is the first print pulled on a Dick Blick press that I purchased last year. I have never printed on a portable press before. It was quite challenging getting the pressure where it needed to be and there were more than a few curse words spewed as I made several test prints. I was both relieved and surprised with the outcome, a nice dark impression that exceeded my expectations for a drypoint printed on a small press.

Drypoint prints provide a very immediate result because the image is scratched directly into a plate of copper creating a burr which holds the ink. The downside to a drypoint is that the burr is very delicate and can only yield a few good impressions.

This portrait is based on a good friend who came to my house one day bearing a striking resemblance to Van Gogh. His hair, which is red, was cut short and he was sporting a healthy beard. I was blown away at how much he looked like the master draftsman and felt that this similarity needed to be permanently documented.

Recycled Plywood Chair

There is a certain amount of waste left over from my projects whether it is wood, paper, metal, etc. I am always bothered by this waste and where it may end up after it is thrown away. I decided to challenge myself to a project of recycling this waste into a functional form.

This chair was constructed from plywood pieces that I would normally would have cut down and thrown into garbage. Most wood scraps are too small and awkward to work into other projects. But if the goal of a project is to utilize that waste to create something unique it instantly takes on a new life and purpose. I really became excited with the idea of building a chair that could be designed from multiple scraps of wood that would be cut to size and joined to create a comfortable functional object.

Plywood has a history of being used as a cheap building material with no real aesthetic value. One of the goals of this project was to make this seemingly ugly wood appear beautiful and somewhat exotic. I decided that this could be accomplished by exploiting the interesting qualities of the plywood's veneered layers. The layers face towards the sitter providing interesting effects from the various colors that are found in the veneer of the plywood. The chair was sanded, stained and polyeurythaned. This was done to further enhance the grains and colors in each of the layers and to provide a surface that encourages the sitter to touch the wood without the worry of getting a splinter, which plywood is usually notorious for.