February 28, 2023

We drew at Sir Henry Morales' studio in Albuquerque.

I drew/carved into Expanded PVC Foam and Henry printed it after the model left:

The variety of lines

might have made this

my most successful figure print yet

I first drew on the foam square with a gel pen (the lines would rub off with a bit of water):

I then drew into the foam using a stylus and diamond point. Next I pushed into the foam with the large ball end of a modeling stylus, making large dot dents:

 

Finally I carved out the contour of the figure with a linocut knife, and then Henry inked it for printing:

Brayered with Speedball Supergraphic Black relief ink

Henry "kisses" the paper first,

pressing it into the linocut with an Iron Frog

Then Henry pulls the roller over the print

with his old Letterpress press

We followed a similar process to print the AI generated linocut generated by Leonardo.AI, which I engraved into linoleum with the laser cutter at Quelab.  I also worked Maya Blue pigment into plate oil to make a blu printmaking ink:

We had used this Maya blue

to paint into buon fresco

Inked with Maya Blue pigment color

The blue print

The Maya Blue print on the left

came out nicer than the black print on the right

OTHER PRINTS

Henry also printed two of his foam plates and one of Cassandra's linocuts:

Expanded PVC Foam

Henry's self portrait plate

Pulling out all the PVC worms

with tweezers

Printed on two slightly different colored papers

with black ink

Henry carved the model and printed it afterwards, that same night:

The foam was spray painted black

before carving

Almost carved

Inked and ready to print

on the Letterpress bed

The final print

Printed in blue and black

Cassandra's Print

Henry quickly carved a contour around Cassandra's linocut:

Cassandra's final print

My other drawings/plates from the same session:

We have drawn and printed in Henry's studio before:

• February 7, 2023
• December 13, 2022
• October 3, 2022
• September 19, 2022