The Armless Hug

This is a sneak peak at an exchange I did with Printmakers Unite! I haven't yet mailed them out, so if you are part of this exchange and you want to be surprised then I suggest you navigate away from this blog. Check out another one while you're at it, perhaps http://mellowphone.com/ . This is my friend Frank's site. Frank is a guru of all sorts, including silkscreening, beer brewing, button punching and amateur world domination. He is always with an idea in his head and a song in his heart. If you scroll down on this link you will see the cd of the talented musician Christopher Bell. Does that drawing look familiar? It's mine! In case you can't tell, it's a turtle in a turtle neck sweatshirt, which essentially sums up Christopher Bell. Holla'!

But back to this week's art.
The theme for the exchange is "the luxury of . . ." (fill in the blank). I'm excited to see what other folks consider a luxury. My luxury is a particular type of hugging, it's called the armless hug and to do it you need someone you've known for a long time, followed by a good hearty lean into each other, and a moment to just listen to each other being alive next to you. I highly recommend it.





So I decided to do this whole edition in color using a process called a la poupee. This means I color the plate first, print it and then ink up the lines and print it again on top of the color. I timed it and was able to ink and pull each print in 20 mins. But for an edition of 25? Wow. I'm freeking psycho. But I feel like it is worth it, cause hell, this is a very luxurious print exchange isn't it?

P.s. Thanks Ezerd for giving me an extension on this! I promise to get it to you soon.

Here are some variations on color that I got.





I just realized that I did a post several weeks back where I showed the original drawing for this and the plate before it was etched. I love when things come full circle.