P R I N T S
DESERT TRIANGLE
It stays up until December 21st, 2023. The reception is on October 26th, and there will be a gallery talk on Zoom, probably on September 21st.
The PRINTERS PLANET
We showed 8x8 inch prints from the BUCKET EXHIBITIONS collection, and made round linocut prints on a REAL Tortilla Press -- at the PRINTERS PLANET Pop-up market on June 24th, 2023. This was in front of the CURRENTS NEW MEDIA Festival in Santa Fe, at the State Fair grounds adjacent to the rodeo:
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PRINT WORKSHOP
EXHIBITION
We hung prints on June 1st in the hallway of the North Fourth Art Center in Albuquerque. These were made at the BLOCK PARTY workshop on May 27th, 2023. The exhibition was also part of the First Friday ArtsCrawl on June 2nd, 2023:
CHILDREN'S PRINTMAKING WORKSHOP
Sir Henry Morales had a print exhibition in Tijeras at the East Mountain Library branch, and also ran a kids printmaking workshop on June 3rd, 2023:
I was really impressed with the Styrofoam prints that the children made during Henry's workshop, and made a YouTube video of all of their prints:
The kids make far better Styrofoam prints than I do, because they work with general shapes, rather than obsess with details. The Styrofoam does not lend itself to creating details.
OPEN PRESS EXCHANGE
The OPEN PRESS EXCHANGE #2 in Germany posted my print on their website, which I made at the very beginning of the year:
TINY ART, BIG DIFFERENCE
My print was part of an art show -- TINY ART, BIG DIFFERENCE -- at the FIRST NATIONAL 1870 BANK on the Santa Fe Plaza, June 9 - 24, 2023, organized by Stephanie West:
LASER ENGRAVED PRINTS
The laser engraved round linocuts (4 inch diameter), as well as the hand carved ones, looked great in the 4x4 inch Walmart frames:
We can laser engrave images sent in email from all over the world, and exhibit them. For instance, we laser engraved a couple of images sent in email from Guadalajara.
Manuel Guerra also laser engraved an image in El Paso, that was sent in email by Carnegie Muir from Australia:
Manuel Guerra is taking these small round laser engraved discs to Guadalajara, for a "Print Off" with 3 Gatos Press (like we did in 2019) on July 8th, 2023, at the Galeria Sepia:
The new LightBurn software at Quelab makes it really easy to laser engrave linoleum. I've been pushing it to laser engrave AI (Artificial Intelligence) images from Midjourney, and it breaks down the greys into nice dot patterns (the Atkinson option works well):
The laser engraved linocuts also work well with STAMPING FOAM. After heating the STAMPING FOAM, it took the laser engraved linoleum image really well, including the fine dots that make up the greys, and then made great prints.
The fine linocut of an AI image (below),
the STAMPING FOAM (top right),
and the prints made with the STAMPING FOAM (top left)
using black relief printing ink
Unfortunately I crashed the bed of the laser cutter into the head while using the "auto-focus" function, and broke the laser cutter. I believe that the foam was too thin to set off the Z axis probe, and the bed kept rising. This would probably be the same problem when "auto-focusing" on paper as well:
I broke the laser cutter on June 23rd
They did fix the laser cutter promptly, so the damage wasn't permanent.
AUGUMENTED REALITY PRINTS
We managed to use WebAR to add AR (Augmented Reality) 3D images to prints, but it wasn't pretty:
Meeting of the Print Giants -- Manuel Guerra of El Paso meets Sir Henry Morales of Albuquerque at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in the "Nexos Entre Raices" art exhibition:
The second summer artists party happened at Art Buddies in Albuquerque on June 6th:
FAKE AI ART
EXHIBITIONS
AI is charging ahead, and there were more than a few innovations in June:
- They added AI to a beta version of Photoshop, and I got to try it at Quelab on June 1st
- QR Code AI Art Generator
- Make a Qr code in art with stable diffusion
- Clipdrop -- "uncrop" your images
- Music Gen -- AI music generator, can even alter an upload musical segment
- Midjourney came out with a big 5.2 upgrade on June 22, allowing one to "zoom out"
O T H E R
Gary Cohen started a portrait drawing session every Friday. night. The artists don't pay money, but they have to give the drawings to the model -- following the example from "The Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists." So far this has been very successful.
ALBUQUERQUE
DRAWING GROUPS
- New Mexico Art League -- 3409 Juan Tabo Boulevard NE
- The Art Buddies Studio (Lomas at Carlisle)
- The Artist Studio -- 8200 A&B Menaul Blvd. NE
- Z-Lounge -- 3711 Central Ave NE (not all Wednesdays --enter through the lobby at Hotel Zazz)
- North 4th Art Center -- 4904 Fourth Street NW
- Edith Bunker Studio -- 5445 Edith Blvd. NE Suite I (not meeting in June 2023)
- Also not mentioned in the drawing group at the Harwood Art Center, on Tuesday nights, 6:30 - 9:30 PM, 1114 Seventh St. NW
- Plus The Garden off Edith has life drawing on Wednesday, 6:30 - 9:30 PM -- 521 Central Ave Ne
- THE PAPER lists some of the art events in Albuquerque
ODD
The flavor of June 2023
- Los Indios Bravos of the Philippines included painter Juan Luna
- Academia de Dibujo y Pintura in the Philippines opened in 1821
*****
No wonder I can barely keep up, a lot of art happened in June.
The year is only half over, and I've made 115 blog posts already, more that most years. I thought 2023 was going to be a lazy year, but I can barely keep up.
