Tracey and Jon Stewart and Farm Animal Rescue

article link: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jon-stewart-tracey-farm-sanctuary

I was at an event last Saturday where Tracey and Jon Stewart were being honored for opening up a new sanctuary for rescued farm animals. The new sanctuary will be an extension of the Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY.

The video below says far more than I can about the extraordinary work that the Farm Sanctuary and other NY sanctuaries (ie, Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary). Warning: the video below shows the horrid conditions that these 200 animals were rescued from.

Animalia Print Exchange

Car Number 29
Reductive Linocut
©2012, Elana Goren

The above print was submitted for a print exchange organized by Printmaking Sisters in Australia. The Animalia International Print Exchange will be exhibited in Australia in August, then Italy and the U.S. in 2014.

I decided to do a linocut because I hadn't done one in a while and I wanted to create the print as quickly as possible with the deadline approaching and the need for extra time to ship the prints to Australia from New York.

I have been working for a while with the subject of cattle trucks that I see on the highway. They contain animals who are not fed or given water for the duration of the trip which might last days. I am pretty obsessed with the subject since I saw a calf one hot summer day in one of these death mobiles.

I was behind such a truck on an extremely hot day while driving on Interstate 84 that runs through New York. I saw a calf try to stick it's nose through one of the container's holes and stick his tongue out, desperately trying to get relief from thirst by "licking" the air rushing by the truck. It made me sick to think of those poor desperate animals, cruelly neglected as they were sped off to their deaths.

Watercolor Montoypes

"Anticipating Death"
watercolor monotype, ©2012 Elana Goren

"Shooting Victim"
ink and pastel on paper, ©2012, Elana Goren

I have been experimenting using different types of water-based media with the new-to-me process of creating watercolor monotypes. There's been a lot of trial and error and really just seeing what effects I can get with this way of working. It is very different from using oil-based inks to produce monotypes and I'm pretty thrilled with the unique effects and vibrancy that I can get with this process.

As I was taught by a fellow artist at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop this past winter, I start by coating the plexiglass plate with gum arabic and then I buff it in with a dry cheesecloth. I believe that this helps the media release from the plate onto the paper when it goes through the press (but that's just conjecture on my part). I let the gum arabic dry and then begin applying the media (watercolor paint, non-waterproof ink, water-soluble dyes, pigment, etc) to the plate in various ways. Once the media is dry, I run the plate through the press with dampened printmaking or watercolor paper. The damp paper reconstitutes the dried media and allows it to transfer.

The first print above was created using watercolor paints and Dr. Martin's Hydrus liquid watercolor which has some pretty intense colors. The second print was created with Higgins non-waterproof ink (which may be fugitive--I'm not sure) and pastel pigments applied both directly and with a wet brush.

I hope to post more of these as I become a little more comfortable with the process.

UPDATE: Gum arabic definitely needs to be buffed into the plexiglass plate before you apply watercolor. An accident experiment proved how watercolor will not release well when printing if gum arabic is not applied.

White Ground Experiment

Cattle Car
Etching, 9" x 6"  © 2011, Elana Goren

This was a test plate where I mixed different techniques together to see what effects I could get: strong hatched lines mixed with the crayon aquatint as well as white ground effects. I usually don't do alot of crosshatching and rarely combine this with my usual aquatint tonal shading but since I was experimenting here I wanted to see what would happen. The jury is out on whether I want to do more with it, perhaps if the subject/composition dictated more expressive hatched linework, but for now I am much more interested in what happened with the white ground.

I used alot of water when applying the white ground. In fact, I wet the areas on the plate where I wanted to apply the white ground and then let the ground swirl around in the water as it was drying. I had to let go of any notion of control over where the ground will be thickest and thinnest in the watery swirls but I found this to be a general feature of white ground that I like, yielding results that are surprising, unexpected. The resulting smoky, hazy atmospheric effect came from repeated applications of the white ground in the same manner in between etches.

White ground is a bit tricky, there are so many factors involved in how it will yield results you are looking for. The formula used to create it will determine if it's more pigment-heavy or more soapy which in turn determines how it responds to water and after plate application, to the acid itself. I used a recipe from the book Etching, Engraving and Other Intaglio Printmaking Techniques, by Ruth Leaf. It's a great recipe for ground that can be stored in a jar and activated easily with a wet brush each time you need to use it. 

If you are interested in white ground or any other etching techniques, please let me know if you have any questions or comments. I am still experimenting with white ground and I welcome insights from others who have used this. I hope to post more about it in the future as well.

When It Doesn't Work

"Not Alarmed Yet"

Pastel on monotype, Rives BFK

There are times when monotypes don't come out the way you planned and that can be a good thing resulting in a "happy accident" where you end up with something both wonderful and unexpected. However, this is not always the case with some monotypes, sometimes they just don't come out well at all. So what to do?

I had been taking all my failed prints (monotypes, etchings, woodcuts, etc) and storing them in a drawer with the hope that I would figure out what to turn them into at some later time. Perhaps tear then up and make them part of collages or paint over them and see if there was any more I could get out of them. But the pile in my drawer just kept getting bigger until I decided it was time to dig in and see what I could do with my failed prints.

I started experimenting with mediums that work on top of Rives BFK (the paper I use most for printmaking) and which will work on top of the oil-based inks that I use for my prints. I pulled out my pastels and started playing with layering color lines on top of one of my monotype ghost prints (a second print from a monotype plate that has already gone through the press once). I have been working towards loosening up my drawings and I thought I'd practice a bit with the pastel lines on this monotype. The result is what you see above. A loose pastel drawing that has a monotype "underpainting." I still need to work on this and I suspect I'll improve with practice, but I kind of like the effect that's achieved by using this technique. It also gives me hope that I will finally be able to do something with those "failed" prints stacking up in my drawer. I might have some future successes just waiting to be discovered in that stack.

New Monotypes

"Taken," plate size 6" x 9"

“Awaiting Their Fate," plate size 10" x 8"

"Dairy Cow II," plate size: 28” x  20”

I have been experimenting with monotypes and I find the process pretty addictive. I work on a plate from anywhere between 1 and 3 hours (depending on the size of the plate) and I get a unique print with qualities that I can't achieve any other way. Also, it's a such an enjoyable way to draw. I use mostly the subtractive method, utilizing things like paper towels and cotton swabs to remove ink from the plexiglass plate. This helps yield expressive strokes in the highlighted areas, adds textural qualities in shadowed areas and shows the drawing process with every streak and lightly inked area created with these soft, blunt tools. I can also manipulate the ink on the plate with my fingertips to form the shadowy figures that I tend to include in my compositions.

These monotypes have been a great break from the rigors of the intense and detailed work that goes into my etchings. And the satisfaction of pulling prints so quickly makes this a seductive way to work. I also plan to experiment with monoprints where I hope to combine the expressive effects of monotypes with the fine linear work of etchings. This is a yet another thing about printmaking that is so appealing: one technique leads to another and then to a combination of those processes and on to more discoveries down the road. Printmaking never fails to light up my mind with creative possibilities.

Eyes Void of Hope

I've been experimenting with textures in my aquatints and the results can be surprising and interesting. I used a burlap texture for this subject, a cow who spends her days with her head locked in bars that do not allow her to turn around, move very much at all. Her eyes are truly void of any hope, or light, or anything beyond her misery.

UPDATE: For a good article on the plight of farm animals in the U.S. look at this in The Atlantic.