Arrrrgh

• April 27th, 2005 • • computers, jobs, supplies •

Ah, I was cheerily coming up from the studio after a productive evening, only to have Neptune’s Finder malfunction. Insert sad sad noises here. I can’t for the life of me figure out what is wrong with it. Fortunately, my generous family bought Pisces for my 25th, so I can do a firewire connection and backup everything. Bah. Just when my evening was going so well, too!

* * *

I finished a lesson plan earlier this week involving CMYK printing process for my pedagogy class. Unfortunately, I could not procure any oil colors in process cyan, magenta or yellow. Acrylic was the only thing available: I purchased some retardant and decided to try and print using acrylics.

Materials:

ez-cut block
acrylic CMYK colors
acrylic paint retarder
various papers and posterboards

I actually started out using the acrylics without the retarder. The cyan rolled up well, but I quickly forgot exactly how fast thin layers of acrylic dry! Luckily I tossed my roller in the sink before it was ruined. After adding the retardant, the paints didn’t roll up as nicely, but didn’t dry out quite so fast. Interestingly enough, the recommended amount of retarder to add was no more than 15%…I mixed up about a 3:2 combo. While the package warned of tackiness for hours to come, the thin amount rolled onto the block dried QUITE fast. Not as good as oils, but they worked in a pinch! The only real problem I had was acrylic acting as a glue between the block and paper. Initially I thought it was a problem with the acrylics’ fast drying time. However I accidentally laid the block down on a dried print and it peeeeeeled the acrylic right off of the paper! There is now a thin layer of acrylic affixed to my block. Great.

After working out a lesson with examples I was somewhat inspired by using and working with the very “layerable” CMYK paints. Normally I’m a little reluctant to act on working with some new materials but I thought, “What the hell.” And painted something somewhat nice, complete with some modeling paste and a screen I used to make some t-shirts with. It’s not bad; it may not be good, either. It has a wiener dog in it. CMYK Wiener or something like that. Humph. So, it may not fit in with my usual portfolio…eh. Everyone needs a little ’bout of self-indulgent art therapy every once in a while! On that note, I’m thinking of starting a portfolio of pictures and items that are not typical of the usual suspects I create. When I returned from Europe with a painting for my parents of a campsite in Venice, I think they were surprised that I could do a watercolor landscape at all. (Heck, their favorite print I did was of an old Mexican man sitting in a chair admiring the landscape.) Parental admirations aside, I’ve been meaning to have a secondary gallery for a while now. Perhaps this is something I can attend to when I finish with these teacher certification classes!

(Incidentally, wish me luck…I have applications in at 6 districts in my area. Here’s hopin’!)

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