Rare Stupid Human Trick #1

When there is not much to do on a Saturday afternoon – it’s hot, we cleaned the apartment and don’t want to spend money, you have to find ways to entertain yourself and of course my blog audience.

Check it out!

Once I find some extra cardboard or/and linoleum I’ll try to get some Breakin’ Bernie footage to follow-up. 

! To the Top

Here’s a real cat fight

Skippy (orange boy) and Domino routinely wrestle while we eat, watch TV, read and pretty much anytime they are both awake and not eating.

Is bernie a spy?

With all these different looks I think Bernie could be on the next Alias…

   

An Intro to Lithography

Lithography is a printing technique where the image areas on a litho stone or plate are chemically treated (etched) to accept ink and repel water and the non-image areas are treated to repel ink and retain water. Grease and water do not mix is the basic principle that comes into effect here. The litho crayons used to draw the images are greasy.  A lithographic press is used to print litho images, using a scraper bar and heavy pressure.

Metal plates such as aluminum and zinc or lithographic stones are used in lithography.  The stones can come in a range of color from white-yellow to gray and blue and different etching strengths are needed for each.

Before drawing on a stone or plate, it must be treated to open up the pores of the surface to accept the greasy materials.  For a stone we grid it down with a levigator for several minutes until the stone is level - which gives quite a good work-out. If the stone is not level then there will pockets in the final print that won’t be there.  To get rid of grease on aluminum plates - we use boiling hot water and soft paper towels to rub the plate for 3 minute intervals 3 times each and allow to dry.  Between each interval we wash off wiht tap water. During this step and until the printing is finished we make sure not to touch the surface of the plate or stone with our fingers.

Before drawing on the surface, a border can be painted to ensure that no ink will be picked up on the surface during printing – this is called masking the edges.  Using a high concentration of nitric acid and gum (7 drop of nitric acid to 1 oz gum) for stone or for aluminum plate – a 1:1 combo of gum and stock solution (this is explained more in next paragraph), we paint a border around the surface with no bubbles using a bamboo brush – that has no metal since we are dealing with acid here. 

Water based media like tuche go on before crayon work.  When in doubt about darkness about image always got darker – the image always looks darker on the plate/stone than when printed. Keep track of what media and which crayons are used where on the image for later etching step.

Once the image onto the plate or stone  the image must be etched.  The etching solution for stone litho is a combination of nitric acid and gum arabic – the levels of acid depend on the drawing strength of the drawing materials used. For aluminum plates the etching solution is a combination of gum arabic and a stock solution that consists of 1 and 1/2 oz of phosphoric acid and 1/2 gal of gum arabic.

So there will be different etching solution concentrations for different drawing effects.  The weaker solution in acid concentration gets applied first with a bamboo brush, and the strongest applied last. Be generous. Get rid of all bubbles and let the solution sit for 3 minutes.  Then get rid of the excess etching solution with newsprint and then buff down with cheesecloth.  After etching let the stone sit for 24 hours – plates you can start printing as soon as etching step is done. 

This next step will be in the next post. 

My Obsession for the Summer…

Project Runway!!!.. of course Grey’s Anatomy is number one in my book, but a girl has got to find something when it’s on summer break and the re-runs are on Sun and Thursday which do not conflict with PR on Wed.

So a couple of things… I loved Uli’s necklace she wore at the end – the chain with the envelope, Bradley had the cutest dog not Laura, Keith needs to not be so cocky – it really is getting annoying, and I am already anxious for the scandal of next week’s episode… hmm maybe there is some designer romance.. I don’t think that has happened on previous seasons and there always needs to be a twist to one-up the last season. Who could it be?

Can September get here any sooner for Season 3 G.A.!  Ok these are the only 2 shows I will admit that I am fanatical about (am I ending with a preposition? = grammar teacher would be mad).

Lithography work

I finally got around to photographing some of my old artwork.  The first segment are a couple of my lithos from my first printmaking class.  I was really fortunate to study under Ms. Akemi Ohira – an amazing litho artist.

I will add more info on the printmaking stuff in my next artwork entry. Lo siento, no tengo tiempo ahora.

 

 

InnerToob

Here is a new site that Carter is working on and I have been playing around with.  For anyone that is uploading video online… you can take those files and paste them to Innertoob.com and add comments to video or audio files.

Here is a clip from Shanna and Gary’s wedding.

Le Tour

Let’s go Floyd… 30 seconds is nothing.

The Ant Question

So if you were next to some stranger and you see an insect crawling on them do you do something about it (flick it off, pick it up) or just watch and wait for the scream?

Well I decided on the second option today as I sat again in the back of the 217 bus.  I looked over at the lady sitting next to me and saw a little black ant crawling all over her back on her sweater.  I have in the past flicked bugs off of people while waiting in line, but I had already dealt with enough ants this morning and wanted to see what the little guy could do. (Yeah I am fighting a never ending battle with the ants that live under my kitchen – they attacked 4 times yesterday)

So the ant crawled all over the lady’s back and down her sleeve and I was hoping for him to make it to her arm and he got all the way to the edge of the sweater and then turned around and came back towards me.  A couple minutes later he did make the jump to her elbow and the woman never noticed.  He crawled all over her arm, man – how do you not feel that? I wanted a freaked-out jerking reaction from her, but nothing.  Then he crawled off her finger onto the bus seat and she got off at the next stop.

That’s the bus story of today – ants suck, they can’t even scare people.

Waist Down – Prada Exhibit Animation

On July 13th I was able to attend the opening party for Miuccia Prada’s Waist Down exhibit at the Beverly Hills Prada Epicenter.  Here is part of the animation that was projected onto the front of the store.