PENLAND PICS

This isn't the typical scenario one conjures up when thinking about Penland School of Crafts, but I couldn't resist uploading this photo. I think it's beautiful. Construction is under way for a new drawing and painting facility on campus. Does this mean we'll be seeing more drawing and painting classes offered at Penland in the future? I hope so!

From July 20 - August 5 I attended a class called "Experimental Drawing and Printmaking" which combined non-conventional drawing approaches with intaglio and monoprinting. For one exercise, drawing instructor, Evie Woltil Richner, had us make our own unique drawing tools and use them to create marks on paper in graphite and ink. The results were spectacular, but I was also interested in rendering the objects themselves. 

Another experiment had us drawing, literally, alongside another person with our wrists bound together. Here I was bound with a classmate, Lisette Chavez, who grew to become a close friend during the two weeks of the class. Lisette is a talented artist who just got her MFA in printmaking with a focus on lithography. For this drawing we were sitting across from each other and drew each other's portraits.  At some point I will reproduce this drawing onto a t-shirt because I love it so much.

Here I am painting pure pigment and gum arabic onto a plastic board which will be rolled through a press and printed onto paper -- a monoprint! This is the first one I ever made.

On the left is the "ghost" of the monoprint (the second run.) I'm not sure why, but intestinal tubes and grubbish shapes were recurring in many of my monoprints, perhaps because of the globular nature of the paint.

I ended up doing nine monoprints for my Self Exam series, along with nine ghosts. (They will be uploaded next week.)

This is one of my first intaglio prints! Remember the tools from earlier? I scratched these drawings with an etching tool into a thin coating of hard ground covering a zinc plate.The plate was then put into a nitric acid bath which ate away the exposed lines. After the hard ground was cleaned off, the plate was wiped with ink to fill in the lines. Wet paper was rolled through the press to pick up the ink in the lines. There are all kinds of tricks you can learn to get the lines deeper and darker. There are terms like "spit bite" and "open bite" that refer to the way the acid eats into the plate.

Intaglio printing and rainbow surface rolls! The rainbow is quite a complex maneuver, so Ms. Printer Extraordinaire, Lisette, (top right) rolled it out with a steady hand. A surface roll reveals the etched lines as negatives. In the last frame you see where I chose to only fill a selection of lines AND do a surface roll -- fancy!

The key word of the class is "experimental." This is a monoprint on top of an intaglio print.

I experimented a bunch with this plate to evolve the image.You see how the lines of the cat are slightly darker than the rest? That indicates that those lines are deeper than the others on the plate. The printmaking teacher, Robert Mueller, says he can read a plate with no ink on it and know almost exactly what print it will yield. Impressive!

Since I've been back in Asheville, I've been hand-coloring some of my prints. 

I have a million more pictures I could share, and a lot more I could say about the fun people I met, the talented teachers, and the eclectic classes offered during my visit. 

In short, I would recommend this experience to anyone who wants to learn a new skill or build upon an old one. If you have a hard time being in a lush region with temperamental weather shifts, or have problems with the sound of cicadas, or cannot deal with having limited Internet connection, or dislike eating wholesome meals in the company of people you barely know, or don't like having roommates or sharing a bathroom, then maybe, just maybe, you might consider a pass on this experience (or at least take your meals to go and/or request a single room.)

But not me.  Penland, thank you for this amazing journey. I hope to return soon!

* Penland offers many scholarship and work-study opportunities to help students cover the cost of tuition and room/board. I'd like to extend a special thank-you to Rob Williams and Warren Womble, wherever they may be, for funding a scholarship that enabled me to do all of this without cost.

* VISIT MY ETSY SHOP TO SEE MORE PRINTS: Etsy.com/shop/ursulagullow