A Day With Master Printer Dirk Hagner

posted by Nancy Young

In October 2011, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop at the Irvine Fine Arts Center with master printer, Dirk Hagner, who teaches at Saddleback College. Dirk allowed me to photograph as he printed the final layer of a reduction woodcut, registering the block for printing, mounting a print and hand rubbing his prints.

He marks his block outside of the printing area and uses this to register the layers. For each color he does a tracing and lines up each layer using the same marks.

Pine is good for its grain -- pick your wood based on the effect your wood  can contribute to the work. Plywood can even be OK, it just depending on the thickness of the veneer. Hardwood best for precise lines.. Fruit wood, if you can afford it is hard enough and has very even grain though harder to work with, and it does not come in larger sizes. Poplar is good. White pine is available at Home Depot. Select based on the location of the knots. Bass wood, which is similar to Shina is easy to carve. Lemon wood is available at McClain’s only in small pieces. Dirk does not usually like to print using a press since wood blocks tend to bow so he usually hand rubs his prints.

Portraiture is his personal way to pay tribute to his subject. Music as well as Philosophy inspires. Drawings are bsed on photos, then transferred to the block using carbon paper. He then covers the drawing with Min Vac, a non water based wood stain which dries quickly so he can see the contrast when he carves. He doesn't use a water based wash as it warps the wood.

 

Inks :: Graphic Chemicals – oil based block print black, or Caligo. Mixes all his colors, only the black does is straight out of the can. He prefers colors thin to allow the other colors to come through so to thin the ink he uses Flash Oil #4, and reconditions it throughout the da keeping extra cans on hand to store any colors mixed. Best not to ink in to the non printing area – if any gets ink in there wipe it off.

 

Paper: Japanese Mulberry rice paper, it needs to have some sizing and long fibers. Japanese Mulberry is much thinner than BFK Reeves -  you need a thinner paper to print by hand; even so you must rub the paper hard so the paper also needs to be strong.

How to tell if there is enough ink on the block, there will be a sheen – and by how it prints.

 

When rubbing be sure to give it “all you have”, the paper is strong. Note – if you use Teflon it will make your paper shiny. It usually takes three prints each time to get a good print.

 

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Plans all color layers before beginning cutting

 Use a heavy item to hold down the paper so it won’t slip while rubbing.  Rub with the grain

You will see the color come through

Continue to check for any sand grains which could cause the paper to tear.

Printing: Dirk's editions are usually 15, so he prints at least 20.

 He uses many undercolors which makes the final layer of black, pop. He uses a 4” Takech medium brayer, inking from various directions and only inking the area to be printed. Using the registration sticks, he places the paper on the inked block.

Hand rub the print with circular motions as well as straight up and down, using a custom baren that looks kind of like a a 1-1/2” diameter doorknob. You can also hand rub using a wooden spoon.

Stick registration: Marks on the back of the paper and matches this mark up and makes a corresponding mark on a stick. Also marks the block.

Registering a large piece.

Make a stick/bar. Line up the top of paper, center mark (though no mark on paper/notched out stick), so clips a stick on paper using binder clips. Keep stick on for entire process.

 

Rolls paper face out and lines up stick to bar, then rolls down – keeps from lifting and laying down.
Prints final black layer, then removes clip

He brought out another reduction – a smaller print that will have one more layer for shirt and not quite black.

Tools for carving: Dirk uses various sizes of “U” gouges 1-1/2, 3, 6 mm. He starts with the smallest first, then follows up with larger

Inking the block for the final layer

rubbing rubbing rubbing - can see the wood grain through the mulberry paper

 

In some works he cuts the board in different parts, inks then puts back together using a plywood base to fit/lock in the pieces.

Plan your wood purchase. You can use bbq brushes to bring out the grain of the wood, enhance the grain.

Even large prints are hand rubbed, but are initially run through a press to set.

The wood grain of the  plate is utilized as part of the print.

Mounting a print

 

Wet mounts can be reversed(and is archival):

* Uses Henkle wallpaper paste, Metyln standard:

 2 cups water

5 tsp Henkle

let sit so becomes jelly like – leave overnight.  (Check, you may need to add more Henkle.)

It can be stored.

 

Tearing the Japanese paper – difficult since fibers are long. Determine size, wet the paper using a brush – then tear using a straight edge or the edge of a table.

 

Mounting

Uses gaterboard or plywood – very light but very stable.

Prep: using paper tape, tapes paper to gaterboard. Moisten/sprayor if smaller BFK.

Smaller works – print face down on table, glue apply to back of print with glue applicator. Once you start, don’t move the pice. BFK line up and place over print using shower crubber to smooth on. Paper tape BFK with print on to board so won’t buckle.

BFK on gator board is dry

1)   relax paper by squirting with water andy water based ink preset with Krylong

2)   roll it up using a roller

3)   apply glue over all

4)   roll over using brush (wallpaper brush)

5)   glue top

6)   newsprint over – smooth with shower scrubber

7)   wipe excess glue away from paper

Ideas: mounting old photos – archivally on linen

 

Can reverse mounting by spraying with water and peeling off.

 

When can’t be typeset must be relief etching

Printed from back

When asked how to price art?  He said it's really really hard – gallery usually takes 50%. You can try to figure your price by the hour – it can be a full time job to just promote yourself.











Visit Master Printer Dirk Hagner's website here:  http://www.dirkhagnerstudio.com/

California Printmakers 1950-2000 at the Laguna Art Museum

posted by Nancy Young

California Printmakers 1950-2000 is now showing (February 22 - May 31, 2015) at the Laguna Art Museum and proclaims to include “most of the leading California artists of the second half of the twentieth century”, and it does include artists such as Wayne Thiebaud , David Hockney, Richard Diebenkorn, John Baldessari, Bruce Nauman and Ed Rusha, who though all painters are not all printmakers. The title card states that “printmaking flourished thanks to the establishment of workshops where artists could benefit from the technical know-how and inventiveness of expert printers. The most notable were Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, founded in 1960; Crown Point Press in San Francisco, founded in 1962; Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles founded in 1966; and Cirrus Editions, also in Los Angeles, founded in 1970.”

I am not sure how the works were selected but it seems they are from the Laguna Art Museum’s permanent collection augmented by some local private collections. The show claims to be a history of “outstanding” works by California printmakers of the period. The artists represented included well known painters Wayne Thiebud, Richard Diebenkorn, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman, John Baldessari, but with a title as broad as “California Printmakers 1950-2000” the list of printmakers included was somewhat limited. The title touted 50 years of California Printmakers, but the show included many who were famous painters, omitting many outstanding printmakers from 1950-2000. Though it was nice to find items from the artists in the show for sale when when exiting through the gift shop.

The show is well presented and the inclusion of a glossary of printmaking terms enhances the experience for those unfamiliar with the different printmaking processes: what is an edition, what are stages and what are print shops. The show also attempts to educate viewers on the various types of printmaking and terminology by providing a glossary for use in the gallery. An observation was that those shown to be published by a press, Tamarind, Crown Point, Gemini G.E.L., the entire edition was not printed by the artist, but by the master printers of that print shop.

My two favorite pieces were actually by those that were made by actual printmakers: Egon Schiele, a formidable, life size wood cut by Dirk Hagner and Dazzle a delicate hand colored drypoint by Beth Van Hosen.

I had the opportunity to see a show at the Norton Simon in 2012, Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California at the Norton Simon which was a much more comprehensive show so think a more apt subtitle for this show might be “proof-lite”.

 

 

Egon Schiele, 2004

Dirk Hagner (b. 1953)

Woodcut, from the edition of 15

 

Rabbit, 1986

Ed Ruscha (b. 1937)

Lithograph, from the edition of 30, printed and published by the Tamarind Institute, Albuqurque

Museum purchase

Untitled #5 (Stones), 1988

William Brice (1921-2008)

Etching and aquatint, from the edition of 25

Museum (gift of Peter Norton)

Untitled, 1972

Bruce Nauman (b. 1941)

Drypoint, from the edition of 25, printed and published by Cirrus Editions, Los Angeles

Museum (gift of Ed Moses and Family)

Cone, 1995

Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920)

Etching, from the edition of 40, printed and pubslished by Crown Point Press, San Francisco, 2011)

Museum (gift of Rich and Ariane MacDonald)

Dazzle, 1985 (detail)

Beth Van Hoesen (1926-2010)

Drypoint with roulette, hand-colored in watercolor, from the edition of 35)

Museum (gift of the E. Mark Adams and Beth Van Hoesen Adams Trust)

 

Palm Road, 1965

Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920)

Soft –ground etching, second state, artist’s proof

Museum (promised gift of the artis

The Laguna Art Museum is located at 307 Cliff Dr, Laguna Beach, CA 92651

(949) 494-8971

Open: Monday-Tuesday, Friday-Sunday: 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Thursday: 11:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m. Closed Wednesday

The Way of the Flesh II - Mt. San Antonio College

This exhibition in the Mt. Sac College Art Gallery is open through Oct. 16, and is free of charge, with an accompanying exhibition catalogue written by John Seed. Mt. Sac is located at 1100 North Grand Avenue, in Walnut, CA.

As one might construe from the title, The Way of Flesh II explores figurative art by contemporary artists, who are for the most part, situated in California. There will be an Artists' Panel on 9/28 in the Art Gallery, Building 1B.

Participating artists with CSULB ties are Sharon Allicotti, Thomas Butler, Domenic Cretara, and Peter Zokosky. Other artists who also create interesting & often provocative works are Dirk Hagner (also a printmaker), John Nava (who created the designs for the tapestries in Our Lady of the Angels, downtown LA), Odd Nerdrum, and Jerome Witkin.

Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Tuesday nights, 5 to 7:30 p.m. For more information, do call the Art Gallery at (909) 274-4328.

I don't know for a fact that the two drawings below are included in this exhibition, but one gets an idea of the extremely high caliber of work by these artists.

Sharon Allicotti, Study for Cradled, charcoal drawing, 22 x 30"

Domenic Cretara, Going Home, 2005, graphite & pastel, 59 x 39"

"Sight Readings," Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery, Santa Monica College

Photos: Top - Opening Reception
Center - Outdoor Banner
Bottom - Inked block for "Pythia" on the press bed

A special "Big Up" to Curator Gordon Fuglie for always believing in my work & being the prompt I so often need to keep my tools sharp & my blocks at the ready. His lecture last night was thoughtful & a verbal translation of what I do on paper visually.

The review below is from the Santa Monica Mirror. The exhibition runs until 10/11/14, & I'm doing a printing demo on Weds., 9/24, from 3 - 4 PM in room 126 of the Art Department on the Main Campus.

SMC Exhibit "Sight Readings" From Artist Roxanne Sexauer Opens Tuesday

POSTED SEP. 1, 2014, 9:17 AM

MIRROR STAFF

The Santa Monica College Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery is presenting “Sight Readings: A 35-Year Survey of Work by Roxanne Sexauer,” an exhibition of original works by the printmaker renowned in the contemporary printmaking community as an artist whose aesthetic of abstraction references nature. Sexauer’s work recognizes a long tradition built in the distinctive qualities and processes of hand-pulled prints.

The show will be open to the public from Tuesday, Sep. 2, to Saturday, Oct. 11, with an exhibit reception on Saturday, Sep. 13, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

A gallery talk by exhibit curator Gordon Fuglie, Director/Head of Curatorial Affairs at the Central California Museum of Art, will be held on Saturday, Sep. 13, at 5 p.m. in The Edye (adjacent to the gallery).

Sexauer, who teaches in the Printmaking and Art History Disciplines, School of Art, at California State University, Long Beach, will hold a print demonstration on Wednesday, Sep. 24, at 3 p.m. in Art 126.

As a young art student in 1973, Sexauer fantasized about studying with the last surviving German Expressionist woodcut master, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976). Her earliest woodcut prints crackle with the dark angularities of classic German Expressionism.

By the 1980s, Sexauer embraced postmodernism, developing a hybrid, multi-layered approach that mixes botanical and zoological forms with ideas and images from the history of science, printmaking, and mythology. This direction continues to inform her images, which in recent years combine lithography, silkscreen, and collagraphy.

“I have seen her imagery progress for two decades,” said Fuglie. “Roxanne’s art is distinctive because it is complex, vibrant, and always recognizable for its adroit use of technique with multiple images bearing layers of meaning. Connoisseurs regard her as one of the best woodcut artists in the region.”

The show presents the first career survey of Sexauer’s work, beginning with a 1973 self-portrait in the German Expressionist style, and concluding with works completed this past summer.

SMC’s Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery is located at the SMC Performing Arts Center on Santa Monica Boulevard at 11th Street, Santa Monica. Due to construction in progress, enter the building from 11th Street. Exhibits, gallery talks, artist demonstrations, and opening receptions are free.

Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. For more information, call 310.434.3434.

Saddleback College Steamroller Printmaking Event Rolls Out

A Review byVanessa Donofrio

4/29/14

              Saddleback Steamroller Woodblock Party

Held in the Theater Circle at Saddleback College, this printmakers dream is a must and a delight to experience. Every printmaker has got to try it at least once. I guarantee you will be counting the days until the next time the steamroller’s back in town. Vinita Voogd and Rick Reese, the two Saddleback printmaking professors, and their printmaking students hosted this sweet event. The Dean of the Fine Arts and Media Technology, Bart McHenry, was also there to take part in the festivities and carved a mini plate. There were Easy-Ups to shade the students while they rolled ink over their woodblocks. There were also other shady spots for guests to carve out a mini woodblock and have it printed on a turquoise shirt (also the color of the team shirts this year). There was a section set up for printmaking students to sell some of their prints. Vinita, Rick, and some students got to drive the steamroller over these wooden images. BFK, Stonehenge and tapestries were used to print on, with packing blankets and rubber carpet pads used in place of the traditional catcher, cushion, and pusher blankets/felts. These life size wood blocks were cut with a number of different carving tools such as Speedball tools, motorized Dremels, and other woodcutting tools. The Saddleback radio station, KSBR, had this event on the radio and held interviews with students and Vinita. There was a yummy food truck to keep us fed. It was an awesome time. I enjoyed seeing Vinita and Rick and my former classmates from Saddleback again. I was very much inspired by the amazing images and hard work put into them. I can’t wait until next year. Thank you Vinita, Rick, and Saddleback Print students for a fabulous woodblock party!

Tea and Morphine: Women in Paris, 1880 to 1914 - at the Hammer

Tea and Morphine: Women in Paris, 1880 to 1914 Helen Cox 2/24/14
At the Hammer, UCLA - The exhibition runs until May 18th, 2014

This was an impressive exhibit, both for the prints – which included some by Cassatt, Redon, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, and Vuillard – and for the information about the plight of women at the beginning of the twentieth century.  According to the exhibit catalogue, a woman had no right to vote or to own property.  Upon her marriage, any assets she did have became the property of her husband.  He could commit adultery with impunity; she could not.  Job opportunities for women were few, but they could become prostitutes, since that was legal.   It was small wonder that morphine, a derivative from opium, had a fatal attraction for many.

The images could be divided into three main categories:  woman as an evil and seductive influence (femme fatale); woman as domestic and refined; and woman as desperate and distraught.  Perhaps the artist who most effectively captured the dilemma of women was Albert Besnard in his twelve etchings depicting women in situations ranging from wealth to poverty, from being in love to being raped, from suffering drug addiction and prostitution to the death of a child.  Some might consider his images a bit melodramatic; I found them sobering and powerful.

The Art Nouveau prints were classic, filled with beautiful, curved, sinuous lines while depicting drug induced states, acid throwing, and shooting up!  What a contradiction between the form and the content!

I chose to include an image from Albert Besnard, Suicide, because I appreciate his use of positive and negative space.  The white of the snow forms a strong diagonal across the composition, a sharp form that echoes the despair of the woman.  She blends into the dark and the darkness of her pain, an unseen form easily ignored by the passing coach.  The lights of the city sparkle in the background; that such beauty and agony coexist is one of the fundamental contradictions in life.  The use of the vertical lines in the etching reinforces the sense of snow and cold, and her plunge into the river below.
Many of the better prints demonstrated an interesting arrangement of positive and negative shapes.  There were a few faded images that did not look resolved.  Most were etchings and lithographs, with an occasional woodblock or linoleum cut.

It is a bit of a drive to get to the Hammer, but the exhibit was well worth it.  There is also an excellent collection of paintings in the next room, including Daumier, Van Gogh, Vuillard, and Rembrandt.  If you go on the weekend parking is only $3.00 and you are close to the Getty.  Go with a friend and the carpool lane gets you home in decent time if you leave by 3:30 p.m.

Exhibition at the UAM on the CSULB campus - A review of "Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi" by Helen Cox

The author of this post

Thoughts on Traditions Transfigured:  The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi

Review by Helen Cox, January 28, 2014

 I knew nothing of Noh Masks when I went to the gallery, so I read the signs.  I was struck by the goal of the masks:  “incremental innovation within tradition.”  By allowing innovation, there is room for creation and evolving art forms, instead of the emptiness and stagnation in repetition.

 The craftsmanship in the masks is superb.  Innovations are left for the creative aspects; there are strict rules for the craft.  Apparently the use of sandpaper is considered cheating, so the artists who carve these very smooth masks have to be highly skilled and patient.  Their skills extend to painting.  Each strand of hair must be painted with one brush stroke so the thickness of the hair does not change, as it would if the brush were lifted and then replaced.  I can imagine the hours of practice required!  After all that careful work, the masks are then stressed with a brush and a secret formula, to make them look old.

First on display is Yamaguchi’s skill in the traditional art form. Then, the artist became interested in transforming two-dimensional Japanese images into three-dimensional masks. Not only did he apply the Noh mask craft to something new, but he demonstrated innovation within the construction of the mask, employing a modern interpretation to facial features. For example, the nose on the Sharaku print mask is bent to the side, as it was drawn in the three-quarter view of the print. The mouths of the women end half-way across the face. This distortion is meaningful, not random. When viewed from a particular perspective, the mask looks identical to the print or painting.

This woodcut Actor Print is on display with masks, Sharaku, Japan, Oban size, circa 1794

In his third stage, Yamaguchi transformed female icons from European art into Noh masks.  He hit all the big ones:   DaVinci, Vermeer, Velasquez, Münch, Botticelli, etc.  His recreation of the Mona Lisa was spectacular.  I enjoyed the mask more than I enjoyed the original painting (seen ten feet away, through glass and surrounded by idiots with their phone cameras who did not even look at the painting).   He brought back the element in the Mona Lisa that got art historians so excited about the image, before it became a cliché of itself.

 When he created the European art, he even matched the brush strokes to those in the paintings, and of course he aged them in proper Noh tradition.  Some of his innovations were not as successful.  He missed the delicate sensuality of the lips in the Vermeer portrait and made them too red and sloppy, as though her lipstick smeared.  Her tongue is grotesque.  Maria Teresa (Velasquez) had a more bulbous nose and her lips were not quite so turned up; in the mask, she was given a “nose job” which took away some of her personality.  Overall, however, the masks were fantastic, alive, and beautiful.  It was a wonderful way to re-experience images that have become overly familiar.

Note from RS - This notable exhibition will be on display at the UAM until April 13th & was curated under the guidance of Professor Kendall Brown (Interim Director of the Museum Studies Program) by Art History graduate students Karenina Karyodi, Lauren Nochalla, Kristy Odett & Ariana Rizo. A published catalogue accompanies the exhibition & is on sale at the University Art Museum.