Baldwin the Brave Faux Etching

 For the 2022 Bookplate, I originally thought it would be interesting to do an etching for the artwork. I was a printmaking major in college, and I really credit that process with so much of my mental organizations as I layout and ink a piece of my work. However, I no longer have access to the etching supplies & equipment I'd need to safely do an etching at home––so, I opted to fake it and do a faux etching piece that looked close enough that it would work for the bookplate...which I should also address, I decided in the end that this image you see to the left didn't hold up when reduced to bookplate size. My plan is to offer it as an 8" x 8" print in my online store (mouseguard.bigcartel.com) in April when I do another ONLINECON event on my Twitch channel. 

I started by looking at a few etchings of Albrecht Dürer's, specifically this one of St. George. In fact, I started doing a piece of Baldwin the Brave (from the Mouse Guard short story of the same name) in this same pose (not mounted on horseback) with a goose instead of a dragon, but I didn't like him facing away from the viewer. So I started again.

Etchings are prints where a metal plate (zinc or copper) are coated with an acid resist, that resist is then scratched away wherever the artist wants a line to be, and then place the metal plate in acid for the metal to be eaten away (or etched). When the plate is clean and then coated and wiped with ink, the ink goes into all the crevices where the acid etched a groove into the plate, and the image is printed on semi-damp paper on a press.

For the second attempt, I drew a better hero pose for Baldwin, and used the wolf that appears in the story, tangled in the bell rope, as the drama and background element.

This is all pencil on copy paper (later scanned into photoshop and tinted), and in some places (the wolf and the bell) I overworked this for just being a pencil/layout for the final piece, but I wanted some practice at the types of line marks and density I wanted to go for in the final artwork.

I printed out the above layout to the correct scale, and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 bristol. On a lightpad (I use a Huion A3) I was able to see through the bristol surface so I could use the printout as a guide when doing the final drawing. Unline most of my work where I'd use a pen to ink the linework at this stage, I wanted to get a line quality with a little more subtlety and soft edges. So, I 'inked' this piece with a mechanical pencil. I used a lot of pressure, and didn't try to shade my drawing like a traditional pencil drawing, I wanted dark purposeful marks, but with a touch of softness to help sell the faux etching photoshop trickery a few steps down the line.

The original 'inked' pencils were scanned, and I did a tiny bit of level adjustment to help drop out a few light smudges and the bristol's surface texture. 

I felt this piece still needed some tone--which means introducing faking another etching technique called Aquatint. 

Instead of coating a metal plate with a even & complete coat of an acid resist, with aquatint you dust the plate with a rosin. Those little dots of rosin resist the acid and allow the in-between spots to be etched away in the acid bath, making that part of the plate a bit like different grades of sandpaper. Those little pits hold ink at different densities to create different shades of grey/black when printed. In Photoshop I made a grey texture similar to an aquatint texture to use in my last step.

The final assemblage of parts includes: the pencils + a duplicate of the pencils with a slight blur to soften the edges + 3 different densities of my faux aquatint texture (each masked out in places so it appears only exactly where I want it to) + a paper tone & texture & + a sepia color tint over the whole thing.

This was a fun project, and while it won't work for the bookplate, I do plan to release it as a print in April. And someday, when it's COVID safer & when I have access to a studio with the right equipment, I'll do a real Mouse Guard etching again.

2021 Bookplate Process

Every year since 2012 I've been creating a new Mouse Guard bookplate as a special item for fans. The idea is that, with these signed by me, even if you can't bring me your physical copy of a Mouse Guard book, this bookplate can be glued in making your copy signed.

I'll be releasing this year's new bookplate in my online store in March when I'm hosting my during the  #ONLINECON event on my Twitch channel. Currently you can buy several bookplates from past years (and see blogposts for those bookplates at the bottom of this post). For this Blogpost I wanted to share the process for creating the art for the bookplate this year.

I knew that I wanted to do an image that had a woodblock feel to it. My degree is in printmaking, so I was also drawn to the idea of actually carving a block (or perhaps a few blocks) for the process instead of digitally faking it (I split the difference on that––I'll talk more about the digital fakery later). For inspiration I was looking at blockprints from Japan as well as the Arts & Crafts movement landscape prints from California. A fan of mine suggested I check out the work of David Lance Goines for inspiration, and I found this poster he did for the Berkley Horticultural Nursery...it became the starting point. I knew I wasn't going to do all the hexagon background pattern, but I could incorporate the pose, the sunburst-halo, and the gathering of flora.

I usually don't draw digitally, but in this case, I did an entirely digital layout for the art. I changed the flowers to some type of grain being harvested, which is also why I decided to add the scythe. Having carved lots of blocks for printing before, I kept that experience in mind as I made my lines...not to make shapes that would be too difficult to carve around, lines that would be bold and could be easily formed with knives.

As for the colors, I got a little ambitious. Each color should mean a separately carved block––and it was at this point where, liking the look of the colors, I decided to compromise. I'd carve the darkest linework as a traditional print, and get all the color through digital trickery.

When I was in school, the technique for transferring an image from paper over to a wood block (or in this case, linoleum) I'd use graphite paper or rub pencil on the back of the paper and then retrace my drawing. But I found a tutorial online for transferring an inkjet printout to linoleum that seemed much easier. First I gently roughed up the lino surface with some fine grit sandpaper, and then painted it with a slightly thinned out wood glue.

I ended up doing this process twice because I screwed up the first time and thinned the glue out too much.

While the glue is getting tacky, I placed the printout of my linework onto the linoleum. I smoothed out the paper with a rubber brayer. This made sure the paper was really in good enough contact with the glue to bond properly. 

Then I had to wait. Wait for the glue to really dry. Not just a little, but truly dry (this may have also contributed to my first attempt failing and me needing to redo the process). I used a hair dryer for a bit to help with the process--but I still waited hours before attempting the next step.

With a damp towel, I rubbed the paper until the paper started to peel into little nubbins. It was important to to get the paper too wet––it can reactivate the glue, but just to get the paper to disintegrate into little balls of pulp, while leaving the ink bonded to the linoleum block. This was the step where I failed the first time, and I think the glue was too thinned out and wasn't dry enough, so everything washed away down to bare linoleum. There was still some paper material in areas that looked like fog over the design, but it was clear enough to see to carve.

I streamed the carving process on my Twitch channel. I used the same carving knives I had in college––which frankly were too big for this project, but I still managed.

The basic idea of relief printing is that you want to carve away any part you don't want to print––so you leave the parts you want to print standing. It's about working in the negative space.

With the same brayer (roller) from earlier, I inked up the surface of the block and pulled a few prints of the linework once the block was carved. I also took an uncarved block and printed a few full squares. I didn't pull perfect prints of these, the goal wasn't a solid color, but a subtle texture with imperfections. These were to use for the digital trickery step--I could use the texture of them for the color areas.

With the all the bits scanned, I could start the digital trickery step. You can see in the layer menu that I have a layer for each color (each tinted to match the color scheme from my rough version) and then masked out (the black icon next to each layer) so that the color shows though only where I want it to. I still had to make makes that would look and feel like block printed shapes as I made the digital masks for where each color would show

Overall, I'm very pleased with the results. I think it looks like a block print, it looks like Mouse Guard, I got the satisfaction of doing some traditional printmaking again, but I didn't have to go through the headache of carving seven blocks and try to register them all to line up properly. The last step of the bookplate process was to add the 'This Book Belongs To:' text and the lines for a name and the edition numbering. I used parts of the border to copy and create those lines so they looked cohesive.

I hope you enjoy this new bookplate when it's released in March...and below you can look back at the past bookplates and the blogposts about them:

Blogposts:

2012 – Lino Print

2013  – Stained Glass

2014 – Embroidery

2015 – Mosaic

2016 – Pencil Rendering

2017 – Engraving

2018 – Wood Painting

2019 – Gouache Painting

2020 – Wood Carving 

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