Sherwood Works: August 2012

This last 2012 Spring semester I dropped in on Will Niebauers print class and made a dry-point intaglio print in an hour and a half to aid his demonstration of the printing process. Its made by scratching into the plate with a sharp needle or in this case- on plexiglass, but because the material is less durable than metal plates, it does not retain the image for many prints. The scratching raises a burr that catches and holds the ink in the recessions of the scratch when the plate is wiped, yielding a rich, rough line with soft edges.

In this print I decided to take a memory out of my earlier childhood and just scratched it in straight from my mind (had a serious time limit to make it for the class demonstration) and couldn't be happier with the results.

The image may seem disturbing, but it's a little funny, just because it kind-of shows how carried away I would get with my imagination. So this particular day i went out to play cowboys all dressed up but none of the neighborhood kids could come and play. So I decided i wouldn't let it stop me and so I continued to play cowboy by myself. Seeing how I was by myself, i had to play both sides, so when it came time to hang the towns outlaw- I climbed on-top of the monkey bars tied up my toy lasso (now a noose) and got down, then climbed over on the monkey bars to play the roll of the outlaw. I got my head in the loop, but when I tried to get it back out- I couldn't. So eventually my hands lost their grip and I hung for a bit, luckily the rope had a Velcro contraption that allowed the rope's lasso to release after some struggle. I fell to the ground, and was left with a giant rope burn around my neck. Had to hold my chin up for a couple days because it hurt.

So here are the three prints that resulted.