My First Show...

I received a small but generous grant from the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council this Summer and wasn't able to pull things together in time for "My Summer Art Show" project.  They were kind enough to allow me to finish my project this Winter... so now it will by "My Winter Art Show"~

WHO: Julie Bates
WHAT:  Show of my Etchings and Silkscreens (and one wood block - featured on the postcard)
WHEN:  Opening December 3rd (Gallery Walk) - through the end of December, 2010
WHERE:  Heritage Cafe on 2nd Street, Downtown Juneau

Here are the roughs of my postcard/flyer, front and back:

New etching - "Soar"

Ebb - new etching

I Decided to call it "Ebb Tide" - meaning "The receding or outgoing tide; the period between high water and the succeeding low." It also can be use as a way of describing a state of decline... which kind of goes with the Lord of the Flies feel of these "wild" images of Kanon!

and a haiku for this image and my last woodblock image:

“Sea Urchin”
Summers ebb and flow,
Sun glistens through the air,
Urchin on the beach.

Newest sketch to be turned into an etching...

Back to the vertical orientation that I love! Also, working on
turning my last woodblock into a much larger piece - 28"x12" ~ I'll
share the background which I sandblasted to bring out the woods grain
and the final etching of this one (I'm calling it "Ebb" but reserve
the right to change it) later!

This time small ... Next time a big one! I'm happy with the look and style; woodblocking is fun!

New sketch...

I am trying to be more aware of my "style" when I sketch. I realize it
comes out on it's own, but I'm trying to be more deliberate in the way
I make my marks... Instead of timid little sketches I want solid
studies that reflect the final peice more. I'd like people to be able
to say I have a recognizable style some day!

Orange paint and my latest etching!

I LOVE my new orange coffee table... It brightened the rainy July! It
turned out to be too bright a background for my newest etching... This
one is my favorite so far (the newest one always is:). I'm calling it
"freshly fallen" and is a continuation of my snow covered trees series.

New work... Etching with silkscreened backgrounds!

Etching with silkscreen background...

"Through the Trees" at the UAS Juried art show at the JAHCC

Some of my Spring Semester work

Etching & Aquatint - Some of my work this semester

Winter berries and the first snow...

My Columbus Day hike to John Muir cabin... Gorgeous day!

making due with what I've got...

I don't have a great camera... I was pretty disappointed with the quality of the pictures it takes after I bought it. The flash isn't good and it isn't consistent; sometimes the flash goes off sometimes it doesn't. And the shutter speed is REALLY slow. Enough complaining, though...

Despite the deficiencies of my camera, here are some cool pics I took the other day. I love the green and that spring is finally happening... and I love these curtains that I've had for years and am finally using! For someone who never liked flowers... I think I like flowers now (they are very well designed, by nature, and since I'm obsessed with design it makes sense - in my defense).

small victories

Having a busy life can be so frustrating! I try my best to take care of things right away, but when difficulties arise, I only have so much time (during business hours) and energy before I have to move on.

Case in point: Two full months ago I decided I would figure out how to put a FAVICON on the website at work and on a friends I was working on... so, work said they didn't trust the code I had provided (I got it from a forum; perfectly valid). They have to be concerned for security, so understanding this, I decided I would put one on my site and prove that it was safe. When I tried to log in via ftp to do this, I was locked out of my web-hosting account. Many password resets later I still couldn't get in. This must have gone on for at least a week, when I had to abandon it for more pressing things. My friends had another friend put theirs on their site; mine (and work's ) were still default... until tonight! Yay for perseverance:) It was such a small, simple task and for life and technology to join forces to keep me from my goal... not cool. I can't believe how many dashboards my web-hosting co. has for my one tiny, tiny site... that was most of the battle. I finally found where my hosting log-in was located (and it wasn't very intuitive).

This just proves that I don't give up that easily(!!!!) Ha!

www.eclecticalchemie.com

next evolution of SOAR

This proves it... I'm always saying it's all over for me come Halloween. I have been crazy busy; going to school in the fall was a new thing for me and I'm not sure about taking "thinking classes" next fall. I'll probably take two art classes, instead:) I mean, if I'm going to shirk the repayment of student loans, I might as well enjoy myself. I have a lot of new art from last fall and this winter.

This one is a silkscreen interpretation of a sketch and digital illustration "Soar" I did for Illustration Friday... it's the evolution from media to media - I also started a pastel of it, but haven't finished it. This turned out very MESSY, but it was fun to experiment. I did the background as a speedball reduction, the "airstreams" behind the birds were cut paper and I used an ink extender to make the ink transparent (it didn't work perfectly, but I think it is a good representation of the look I wanted). I did an embossing for the "wave" patterns down below, and the birds are photo-emulsion. I did a frame that was photo-emulsion that broke down, so less then half ended up with that screen and only one of them turned out (shown here).

organic seascape

I love silk-screening! It is so magical... I love the rainbow pulls. You can get so much atmosphere and mood out of combining the colors and playing with how you "slop" the ink on! I created something really beautiful tonight; can you say "Christmas Presents"? Each one is different and I've experimented in almost every one of them. Their imperfections just add character and I've placed the leaves at the bottom so they hide most of the worst ones. I love how the leaves break the frame... something I always love to play with:) I couldn't get the whole thing on the scanner, but this is the majority of it... I only did two black and the rest are on off-white flecked paper. The colors came out sooooo yummy. I got the idea for them from some fabulous "organic" experiments done by Leanne in my class (hers are really superb; she did them when there were more things still growing and she has been silk-screening for a while). Still I think all of my experiments make for a really lovely composite!

6-color Nasturtium

Here is one with two screens of the 6th color... the screen slipped, so I have some with one, two, three, and four black dots in the middle. This one is matted in gold, which the scanner kind of went crazy with. I didn't like the black dot too much (looks more like a poppy) so I kept a bunch without the black dot (see below). I like the freedom to be able to do that and change your mind as you go. If you start with enough to begin with you can have numerous final pieces! I love print-making:)

5-color Nasturtiums

For midterm I added two more colors. Here I liked how the 5-color looked and kept a few just like this. This one is matted in a slightly darker ivory mat...

4 of 4 colors

The final (for midterm, anyway, and on a diff colored paper) Mt Roberts print... I called it "Mystic Mt. Roberts" although I'm sure there's a better name for it in my head somewhere... maybe just "Mystic Mountain." This was one of three prints I did with a water-soluble stencil for the black... the other lost all detail and came out all black. I am going to redo the black plate so that I have more detail and the little flecks of other colors can be seen as windows. I was going to redo it as a photo stencil (this one was a water soluble stencil and all detail went away after I printed this!); now that I think about how I want it to look, I may do the Speedball screen filler like used in the rest of this technique (it is called a "Reduction" since you block out until you are down to your last color). You paint the filler on with a brush and it gives it that painterly look. Maybe I will try both and see which one works better...