Seems that complaining won’t change the dull, winter weather outside so I painted this sunny afternoon on Georgian Bay. I used a close to the water, canoe perspective.
Weather to order…
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Category Archives: Art
Ink Wash painting
Bit of a switch from engraving. I used walnut ink that I’d made to paint this. The colour is great but the ink is quite susceptible to moisture, including its own, so there’s not much layering of colour, the separate tones are mixed in a dish then painted on.
Corn Cobs
I’ve always been fascinated with corn, it grows soooo fast and has been hybridized for a plethora of growing conditions.
The downside is that it’s height is inversely proportional to the amount of summer left. The higher it gets the closer the cold weather is.
Channel to the Bay
An oldie from a drawing looking out to Georgian Bay from the Thirty Thousand Islands, an archipelago on the east side of the Bay. A very peaceful place to sit and sketch.
Pandemic prints
Early on in the year I did a B&W, 4.5 x 5, covid inspired print titled ‘Passing Storm’. As we know the ‘storm’ has been what the weather folks would call a ‘very slow moving disturbance.’
When effective vaccines were announced I did a more hopeful, 5.5 x 8 print I’ve titled ‘2012, the view from here.’
Hopefully a bright, cheerful addition will be warranted very soon :- )
Black
I love the incredible solids that engraving allows and I have a ‘thing’ about prints showing falling objects. With this print I indulged myself on both accounts. I named it ‘Night Fall.’
Dark Shore
Stretching up the east side of Georgian Bay is an archipelago called the ‘30,000 Islands’. I haven’t counted them but viewed from an airplane it seems there could be that many.
However, if you’re still out in a canoe after dusk the 30,000 become one large, never ending island and good luck finding the island you camped on. That meal you’re longing for is there just waiting to be cooked and eaten :- )
Shoreline
Something new for me. Rather than an engraving, a lithoprint using a ‘Pronto-plate’.
This was a 2 colour trial print titled ‘Shoreline’. Still lots and lots and lots to learn.
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS!!!!
A favourite Christmas print, my youngest daughter’s first limited edition. She drew, dad engraved and we pulled a proof. She coloured it in, dad engraved plates for the colours then we printed.
Santa has grown chubbier since then; dad, not quite as much. She’s still quite cute!
My Kinda storm…
It was all happening on paper inside while the cold and storm was happening outside!
Misty morning
One morning I canoed out into a thick fog and down a wide channel towards open water. When I left the channel and headed towards the shore islands slowly began to appear out of the fog. It was quite magical.
This is a 27×14.5 cm, five colour reduction print.
Last Light
I had a spatula of dark ink after cleaning up from printing and ‘painted’ this tree with it. I liked the tree so I created a background for it. 
WAYZGOOSE: Saturday April 27th
Here’s a great show that features engravers, small letterpress printshops, unbelievable bookbinding and many related artisans as well as printing ephemera and books.
….and us, Raven Press.
Come early, see the show then take a hike along a wooded trail on top of the nearby Niagara Escarpment!
Snowy Road, one of a series of Ontario’s bank barns.
I editioned this years ago but something about it always bugged me so it was relegated to a drawer. Two weeks ago I sliced a lot of roadway from the bottom of the plate and all of a sudden the eye was drawn to the barn, not the road!
These are printed in black with an image area of 35.5×58.5 cm (14×23″).
An explanation of the process.
At last night’s show I tried to explain how the plates were printed and used. I didn’t have any sample bits there to make it easy to explain so I’m posting these pics which, hopefully, explain it all.
The bulk of my engraving is done with ‘V’ shaped knives like the one shown but on these plates I used a drimmel in order to get more organic looking shapes. The inset pic shows how everything BUT the image is cut away.
The progressive sheet shows how a three colour print comes together.
clive lewis, printmaker 