The Walled Garden

Welcome back, printmaking nerds! I hope you enjoyed Printober last month! It was so nice to see everyone's work and to meet new friends. Thank you for joining the Printober community.

In this week’s issue:

• The Walled Garden

• Holiday Sale Info

• Question Time!

Let's dive in…

Living Inside the Garden

Ever since I picked up printmaking, I have worked with one mindset: make things real. I know this does not apply to everyone and that is part of the beauty of art. Printmakers truly get to decide what the creative output looks like, but unlike other creatives we have to live with consequences.

As I reflected on my first linocuts, I could see I was comfortable with the negative and positive spaces, but I was clueless about turning the form with lino. ‘On Mariposa Smile’ and ‘Wayward Souls,’ I toyed with the feeling of body shapes and turning the form. I tried scratching out highlights and carving out the fold of the fabric but no matter what I tried, my figures still looked flat and even cartoony.

After pulling those prints, I told myself I did not have to worry about it so much because landscapes are more organic. Well, I kept running into making colorful flat landscapes. Yet, instead of trying something new or pushing my carving technique into what I was envisioning, I let myself continue accepting my status quo.

Before I continue, let me point out that I consider this a slippery slope. Staying in the comfort zone is nice, but after a while the walls of this comfort zone are so high you feel trapped when you attempt to get out.

I finally pushed myself out of the walled garden with my Giant Sequoia print. For years, I had wanted to make a print of these magnificent creatures, but I had no clue how to tackle the project.

To start, the tree’s scale is hard to fathom. The tallest Sequoia is called General Sherman with a height of 275 ft (84 m) to give you some perspective. The height of the Statue of Liberty is 151 ft (46 m). However, Sherman is by no means the tallest tree; that honor goes to Hyperion, a Coastal Redwood located in Redwood National Park.

After searching the internet for reference pictures, and having decided on a design the prepping started, I wanted to make sure I did not stay within my wall garden, so I took my time tracing my design to the lino block. Since I carved during Printober, I wanted a size I would be able to finish within a week. I knew I wanted a sense of uniformity, so I picked a handful of gouges to work with. Two 1 mm v gouges, one 1 mm u shaped, and a larger 3 mm u gouge to clean larger areas.

I started with my main outline and worked my way to cut around the outline of all the foliage. The original plan was to work my way from top to bottom, but me being me, I went ahead carved where I thought it would be easier first, and left the boring parts for the end. There was one rule I stuck by the entire time, and that was following my actual laid out design. This proved to be the hardest thing to do. I am so used to going with the flow if I made a mistake, they were all happy little accidents. Thanks, Bob Ross.

The result was an extremely satisfying print and for the first time I was able to accomplish an original vision. The greatest key to accomplishing it was patience and a lot of will. "Stick to the plan, stick to the plan Daniel!"

On next week I will be covering advance carving techniques and intricate line work!

Holiday Sale!

This year, I will be offering FREE First-Class Package Service - Retail® through the USPS for all U.S. orders until December 10th through www.danielvillaart.com. Select items will have up to 60% discount for the rest of the year. It's the archive cleaning sale!

There will be no order minimums or codes. Free shipping and discounts will be applied automatically at checkout* International orders do not qualify for free shipping this year.

Question Time!

Well that would be one heck of a project! Maybe one day? Thank you so much for mentioning that. It really took me off guard. Maybe I will create one when I have a little more experience with linocut. For now, all I can say is that I would not be opposed to it!

Hey Hold Up!

Do you have a printmaking or artist-related question you want me to answer? Let me know here!

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign-up here.

Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

-Daniel