College Printmaking Work
Please excuse a third week in-a-row of blasting you guys with a ton of images. It seems that every so often I run out of things I can blog about because I can't share some of the stuff I'm working on until later. So this week I'm sharing a bunch of my printmaking work from 1997-2000. Printmaking was my major (I started at Mott Community College under Sam Morello, and finished at EMU under Richard Fairfield), and I've done a few posts in the past on Relief printing, Intaglio Printing, & a combo of the two. There seems to be several plates & blocks I remember doing at EMU & Mott that I don't seem to have prints of anymore. But there are still more than enough images here I can bore you all with.

Mott Era:

The 2nd etching I ever did

Low on ideas, I mocked up a book cover 

for what was then titled "1149"

(this is the story that will be the 4th 

Mouse Guard arc titled The Weasel War of 1149)

Sgt. Pepper style collage of faces from my life at the time 

including fellow students, friends, family, and professors.

A quick etching I did as a Mother's Day gift after the studio had 

been closed down for the semester & the supplies were packed away. 

Tried to do this with as little cleanup to the studio afterwards as possible.

This was a direct photo rip. I was trying to perfect my technical s

kills and had also gotten into late night session 

of playing Axis and Allies with friends.

EMU Era: 

A group of foxes wearing garments. I didn't think I was 

finished with this print until a group critique where 

everyone told me I shouldn't do a thing more to it.

A lot of my EMU prints were on discarded zinc plates. I'd burn away the old etching

with acid, but hints of light & dark spots and texture would still peek through.

Wish I had been more diligent with the bone anatomy and cathedral anatomy. 

I may revisit this composition again as I like the idea of a cathedral 

full of skeletons bathing in the dusty sun beams

A direct photo rip of a kid with a cape tied around his neck 

and holding a fat bunny. The magazine I found the image 

in was torn and beat up, so I gave the edges of the image some distress.

I was flirting with Julia when I was etching this

a combination of 2 plates. The stones were part of a plate

I started my first semester at EMU, the Turtle in my 

last. I printed them atop of one another for this print.

Lino cut portraits I used as Christmas gift tags that year for some of my family & Julia's.

A color reduction woodblock from my last summer semester at EMU. I wasn't in town for the class, but finished up the projects on my 1st semester back on campus. 

My feet. In the technique of intaglio woodcuts I've shown before with the Hands series.

A summer home from school and a block of wood...

so I did a big Flint summer friends woodcut 

(Real life inspirations for Rand, Kenzie, & Lieam are all in this piece)

A singing mouse I did as a demo to teach a friend how to etch.

 I don't think I was supposed to let non-registered 

students use the facilities...but I did.

I had a Gilligan hat and out of boredom, I did a print of it with 

a background of the hat repeated in different positions

Another 'looking around the room for inspiration' piece. These bundled stacks of old silk screens atop the flammable materials cabinet had a nice rhythm of repetitive shapes. (the edge of the drying rack and the old bricks helped too)

These two were an experiment of scratching (drypoint) an image right into the surface of a plate...but instead of using zinc, I used plexiglass. The prints turned out great, but the downside was the chemicals used to clean the plate of ink dissolved the surface details of the plate, making good multiple reprints impossible.

Another recycled plate. This time I was trying to recreate a moment I'd had the summer before in CA rebuilding my 1974 VW Beetle. This is in a partial state...the image was never really finished

And the last two are companions. I told the story on twitter a while back about the left print 'Chickens in the Closet' being about a funny/embarrasing story from Julia's childhood that was told to me early on in our dating. The print on the right is from a story of my childhood where I drilled a hole in the roof to put up an antenna. 

Watercolor Wednesday:
 In case you missed last week's Watercolor Wednesday pieces, here's the first I offered up: Mr. Toad from one of my favorite books, Wind in the Willows. I'd love to be able to illustrate a full version of the book someday, but until then I'll just do a fun character piece to satisfy myself.

The second Watercolor Wednesday piece was one of my own creation. I was trying to channel the sleeping gnomes I drew on my honeymoon 9+ years ago (here & here) I ended up with something a bit more Dwarven than Gnomish I think...but still in that same arena.

 Tomorrow I'll post three new pieces in my online store.


2012 Appearances:
Thought Bubble: Nov 17-18

2013 Appearances: Emerald City: March 1-3
Fabletown Con: March 22-24
C2E2: April 26-28
Spectrum Live: May 17-19
Heroes Con: June 7-9
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

*more 2013 dates coming*

Printmaking: Intaglio + Relief
I've talked before about my two main printmaking disciplines (Intaglio & Relief)  in college and how they informed my growth as an artist. But I wanted to share a process I only used a few times in practice that combined the two techniques for Itaglio (printing from ink underneath the surface of the 'plate') and relief (printing from on top of the surface of the 'plate'.

My Printmaking professor at Mott Community College, Sam Morello, showed us a piece of his work when it was on display for an exhibition in Flint. Normally he wouldn't have shared his work with us since he wanted us to be uninfluenced by his work and only influenced by his teaching. The piece pictured here wasn't the piece he showed us, but similar. He was also vague about how the image was made. With a bit of pressing he gave enough details for those of us inspired to figure it out.

At Eastern Michigan University, I decided to try the technique in one of my last semesters as a printmaking student. The process goes something like this, in a woodblock, you carve lines like a contour line drawing (I chose to do drawings of hands in odd positions and cropped awkwardly). The block is then inked and wiped like an etching, meaning the ink settles down into the cuts below the surface of the uncarved wood block. All of the wood grain also act as tiny etched lines and the ink gets wiped down into them as well. As a last step before printing, you can add areas of flat color with a brayer (ink roller) like you would with a woodblock print. The colored ink sits up on top of the block. Making this technique a mix of Intaglio & Relief printing.

Unknown to me at the time, some past students at Eastern  had broken the press by running wood through it when they didn't also adjust the press for the correct pressure/tolerance settings. So I had no hesitation to adjust the press for my test runs of the prints, but when I put the proofs up for critique the professor was very upset I had run wood through the press. I explained I knew how to correctly adjust the press and he didn't sway, I asked him to adjust the press for me and we could run them together under his supervision, he didn't sway. I explained that these pieces were the majority of my work for the semester, and I had little else to turn in as a final, he didn't sway but re-iterated that by no means was I to run wood through that ever press again.

I called Sam. He had retired from teaching by then, but had a basement studio and a press he was willing to supervise me using. He and I printed the images I've shared above and when I turned the work in at Eastern for a final grade I was able to do so with out having broken any rules. I was questioned by the EMU professor at the final portfolio review as to how I printed them. I promised that it wasn't done on school grounds. He seemed uncertain and not pleased I still turned this work in...until the head of the art department walked in by chance, saw the work, and was very excited about my images & wanted to know more about the process. The head of department's enthusiasm forced my professor to put on a smile and grade the work based on merit rather than the backstory of how & where it was made. To add insult to injury for the professor, the head of department asked if I wouldn't mind loaning the artwork to them for their summer showcase.

The Hands Triptych now lives in our spare bedroom.


2012 Appearances:
Heroes: June 22-24
San Diego Comic Con: July 11-15
Baltimore Comic Con: Sept 8-9
New York Comic Con: Oct 11-14
Detroit Fanfare: Oct 26-28

2012 Bookplate

This year I'm starting a tradition of printing a limited signed & numbered bookplate for the year. I debut these at the London Super Comic Con and have them with me for the rest of my 2012 convention schedule. For now I'm limiting these as convention items. At the end of the year, if I have any left, I will offer them online. I'm not trying to punish fans who can't make it to conventions or trying to drive up their post-con ebay value...I just don't want to run out before I finish my 2012 convention circuit. This year's print is a colored version of a relief print (like a woodblock)


I started with a sketch in my sketchbook that I scanned, tweaked, and printed out at the scale I needed it. I also mirrored the image so that when it is carved and printed, it will un-mirror. Using a stick of graphite, I coated the backside of the printed paper. I taped this down to my block (in this case a piece of Speedball Speedy Carve) and traced my lines with a ball point pen. When I removed this sheet of paper, anyplace I had pressed down with a ball point pen transferred the graphite from the back of the paper to the surface of the Speedy Carve.

Unfortunately, I didn't snap a photo of the speedy carve with the graphite transfer, I only got this one before I  started the process. Speedball's website says that you can transfer printed artwork onto the Speedy Carve material using an iron, but I couldn't get that process to work. With the image transferred I used the carving knives shown here to carve away any area I needed to NOT print (ie: white areas). This type of printmaking is called Relief printing because you are carving away an image in relief.: the areas that protrude are the positive shapes (the areas that will print).

Once the image was fully carved, I used a ink stamping pad to ink up the surface of the block. Usually when relief printing with wood or linoleum you need to ink the surface with a thicker ink and a roller called a brayer, but this Speedy Carve is more forgiving like a rubber stamp, so I'm able to use an inking pad and then place the paper on the surface of the block. It took a few tries to pull a good print, There were a few where I hadn't inked the block evenly, and a few others where I moved the paper and got a double registration.


Here is a scan of the straight pulled print. I carved the hatching into the trees in the background to help push them back into the background of the image. All of the simulated stippling was done by carving patches of cross-hatching only leaving little nubs sitting alone like tiny flat-topped desert mesas. For a bookplate though, I wanted the image to be more than a monochromatic relief print though, so I set to coloring it digitally.

Using the scan of the print, I started flatting the areas. I broke the inked lines into different areas (since I wanted the trees, the moon pendant, and the sword & hilt details to be a different color than the rest of the outlines. The colors seen here were chosen to be clashy & ugly on purpose. This way I can easily see if I got any color in the wrong area (ie: did I stay in the lines) The layer menu on the right of the screen-grab shows that not only are the colors differentiating different areas, but I've made separate layers fro them all (all labeled to make life easier).

The last step in getting the image ready for the bookplate was to correct and render all the color areas. I did so as I've discussed in past posts using a textured brush and the dodge (lighten) and burn (darken) tools.

 The bookplate will be limited to 500 copies, all signed, and sold at conventions for $5.





2012 Appearances:
Forbidden Planet London signing: March 1
Comics & Graphics Berlin signing: March 3
Comic Combo Leipzig signing: March 5
Emerald City: March 30-April 1
C2E2: April 13-15
Boston Comic Con: April 21-22
FCBD: Jetpack Comics: May 5th
Heroes: June 22-24
San Diego Comic Con: July 11-15
Baltimore Comic Con: Sept 8-9
New York Comic Con: Oct 11-14
Detroit Fanfare: Oct 26-28

Signature Sketches: When I started signing Mouse Guard books, I did a little mouse sketch next to my signature in each hardcover as a nice "thank you" to anyone who bought it and/or lugged it to a show for me to sign it. Now, with 3 hardcovers, an RPG, and the Fall B&W ed. I can't keep up with doing a doodle in every one. At a recent signing I saw the line backing up, and me rushing through the doodles (therefore making them a bit sloppier than I'd like). So I have a solution:

Annual print-stamps: I will hand carve a stamp each year and in lieu of the mouse doodle, I'll stamp your book. This will also mean that I can re-stamp it the following year with the new stamp if you like. While I wish I could do an individual doodle for everyone, I just can't anymore. So this stamp is a better quality image, that I still handmade and will stamp myself (and sign) in every hardcover you bring me. I plan to only do custom doodles on request in the oversized B&W limited books.

Stamp process: I started with a doodle in my sketchbook of a random mouse with a sword. I scanned the doodle, added the '2011' date, resized it to fit my stamp material, and them mirrored the entire image before I printed it out. The mirroring is so that when the image is stamped into your book, the date and design will be facing the right direction. I scribbled with a soft lead pencil over the back of the image so that I could transfer it to the stamp material.

The base material for the stamp is Speedball's Speedy-Carve. It's a linoleum substitute printmaking students can use that is easier to carve. It is also soft enough that you can use the carving like a stamp instead of a block print (where the paper must be applied to the block and then rubbed to get the final print.) Placing my design print-out over the material and retracing it, I got a graphite transfer on the Speedy-Carve. I then used a permanent marker to firm up the lines and make sure I didn't rub them off as I handled the material.

Just like I would carve a block print, I carefully carved into the Speedy-Carve with my woodcutting chisel. The idea is to cut away all the white space leaving only the areas you want to print. I covered another example of this printmaking process called 'relief printing' in a previous post. At this stage I also decided to add a series of lines to the background, something the eye would interpret as an optically mixed grey.

Using a stamping ink pad, I was able to make the print on paper by just using the Speedy-Carve block like a rubber stamp. The final 'prints' will all be a bit unique where the ink transfer wasn't perfect, but I tend to like those imperfections, as they will also make everyone's stamped books a bit more unique.

*UPDATE: I was unable to find an ink that would both dry fast enough and also not gum up the stamp in-between uses. So the quick signature doodles remain*

2011 Appearances

Motor City Comic Con: May 13-15

Phoenix Comic Con: May 26-29

Cherry Capital Con: June 25-26

San Diego Comic Con: July 20-24

Baltimore Comic Con: Aug. 20-21

New York Comic Con: Oct. 14-16

It has been a long time ince I last talked about printmaking techniques (see etching post here) and I wanted to share the process on a gift I gave to Julia for our wedding anniversary back in October. We took wedding photos in the leaves at a park near the church, and I decided to do a small lino-cut print of that moment from our special day.

Woodblocks and linolium blocks cane be carved to do a type of print called a relief print. Unlike etching, where the ink goes under the surface of the plate to make the image, in relief printing the ink sits on the surface of the block.

I stared by doing a drawing the same size as my lino block (2" x 3"). It is hard to achive grey tones in relief printing when working at such a small scale, so my design theory was to play just with black and white and have each of us visable by what surrounded us. The white of Julia's dress would be defined by the tree behind her, and the black of my suit would stand out against an open sky area. It was fun to think soley in these terms again, like a 2D design class first assignment.

The next step was to transfer the image to the block. Using a soft lead pencil, I coated the back of my drawing. I then placed the drawing on the block (graphite coated side-down) and then retraced my lines with a ball point pen. When the paper is removed, the places the ball point pen applied preasure transfered the graphite from the back of the paper to the surface of the block.

Next comes the carving. Because ultimately it's the ink sitting on the surface of the block that will form the image, I need to carve away just the areas that are to be white. It's a complete oposite of most etching techniques as with relief printing you are actively working on the negative spaces and the areas you don't want to print.

Using a brayer (think of it as a printmaker's inky rolling pin) I coated the surface of the finished block with 'ink' (in this case acrylic paint). Because the brayer is straight accross, it will not get ink down into the carved portions of the block, but apply it only to the surface. A sheet of paper is placed on the block surface and then rubbed with a spoon. The spoon applies the preassure needed to make sure the ink transfers to the paper evenly.

I hand colored the final print to add the fall color that was so much a part of our Wedding Day. Good to note that the printed image is the mirror of the original block (true with etching as well).

2011 Appearances
MSU Comics Forum: Jan. 22
C2E2: March 18-22
Phoenix Comic Con: May 26-29
Cherry Capital Con: June 12-13
San Diego Comic Con: July 20-24
Baltimore Comic Con: Aug. 20-21
New York Comic Con: Oct. 14-16

Extinct Print:

I wanted to share a print I did in 2002. This was an experiment I was trying for an exhibit called 'Zoo' in Flint, MI at the Buckham Gallery (which was later renamed and rethemed to just be an 'open call for entries'...but only AFTER I did a 'Zoo' piece). The piece is made up of 18 three inch linoleum block prints which I printed with water based ink on velum mylar. Because of the transparent nature of the mylar, I was able to hand color each mini-print using markers (a hodge podge of Charpak & Prismacolor) Below I arranged the individual mini prints in the same configuration as the original above, but so that you can click on each one for more detail.

Upcoming Appearances:
New York Comic Con (Archaia booth): Oct 8-10
Mid-Ohio Con: Nov. 6-7