Finding My Way

Lately the thought that keeps running through my head when it comes to my work is I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. Now that the weather is starting to warm up I’m getting back into the garage studio, and I’ve set up a Fiskars Fuse as a makeshift press so that I’m not limited to the tiny size of a pasta machine.

The problem is that I simply haven’t been consistently making work. Combination of feeling like crap the majority of the time, low funds, and adhd that the doctor and I are still trying to find the right meds for. (The most recent attempt has not worked.) I find myself seeing the wonderful opportunities and shows and sales other artists on Instagram are experiencing and am filled with envy….followed by an internal smack upon the head as a reminder that I can’t get those lovely things if I don’t have anything to show.

I’m also bored with botanicals. I still like making pretty images and I still like botanical images, but I’m tired of working with them. I realized I hadn’t really made a solid body of work about a particular theme (not just broad botanical) since college, where I became obsessed with insect wings and rust. Or my final show, which was essentially a love letter to heartbreak.

However, I now have an idea of where I’m going, and it’s not botanicals. I’m wary of talking about it too much, since I’m still just in the experimenting and playing around stage but I’m finally interested in what I’m doing again. Printmaking has always been my love, and it’s what I majored in in college, so I’m excited to be able to start experimenting again with monotypes and etchings and all sorts of things.

I still have no idea what the hell I’m doing, but I at least have a better idea of where I’m going.

Printable Washi Tape

Digital Washi Tape!

One of the things I’ve been working on lately is digital washi tape. I love washi tape. Making these printables have been so much fun— it’s super satisfying to see how the images look within the sticker bounds. These, Colorful Grunge are from those canceled checks images I used to make the Grungy Check Cancels Photoshop brushes & PNGs. I’m reminded a bit of when I was still running Pigeonroof Studios yarn, a few years ago, how I loved making brightly colored yarns and fibers….but my own colors in real life, to knit with personally, to wear, are blacks and more muted colors.

Abstract Marks washi tape was fun to make— it’s cool to see how sections of a large image can look on their own.

And, one of my favorites, Collage digital washi tape. I had so many small collages that I had mostly made about 10 years ago, just kind of piling up. It’s so hard, though, to just throw away art, so I’ve been really happy with how I’ve been able to finally use them in digital products.

These are all available in the new shop! A huge plus to these digital items is that they are so inexpensive— these all are $2.95. Little bite sized creative treats!

Further Explorations in Cyanotype Printing

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Coming back to cyanotypes after sporadic dabbles the last couple years, I find myself trying to push the limits further. Being essentially out of the art/IG world for several years while I was ill, my wet cyanotype method became a runaway train and, as a result, seems to have almost completely detached itself from me as the originator of it.

So I’ve been exploring how I can push the process further, to get even further away from the blues and greens, and have been getting some lovely grays and blue grays and oranges, a whole new muted palette. So much seems to affect non-traditional cyanotypes, like the weather, sun or no, temperature, whether it’s hot or cold.

I’m still working with my usual botanical imagery. Now that the weather is changing and we’re in fall, with winter approaching, I’m looking forward to the bare branches and dead plants of winter— or, rather, I’m looking forward to taking photos of them. Last winter it snowed and I was able to take some amazing photos of the dried dead seed heads and branches against the snow, which have been some of my favorite images to work with this past year.

The rain has arrived so there may not be too much cyanotype making for a while, although I tend to usually have some cyanotypes lying around outside for ridiculously long exposures. I tend to leave them out even longer in the cold weather, as I have no desire to open my garage studio door when it’s rainy and cold!

I’ll be interested to revisit these experiments when it’s hot and sunny again. I know I will get questions on how I’m getting these colors without toning, and I’m afraid I’m going to be incredibly annoying and say I’m keeping these experiments under my hat for the time being.

I also want to say— if you’ve messaged me through my website and I haven’t responded…feel free to message me again or, even better, message me on Instagram, on my @kristamccurdy account. I briefly alluded to my health earlier, and, without going too in to it, the health issues I’ve had the last several years have left me with some perpetual executive dysfunction that I fight, often unsuccessfully.

The #30daysofautumnleaves Project

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Coming September 22, on my Instagram, @kristamccurdy, the #30daysofautumnleaves series begins! September 22 is the first official day of Autumn, which makes it the perfect date to launch this project, which is that for 30 days I will post a new lumen print of these nibbled leaves. One of the things I love about lumen printing is how there are endless variations depending on all sorts of things, from the paper to the fixer. Every print is completely unique!

more lovely leaf lumens….

more lovely leaf lumens….

Each day’s lumen will be available for purchase at amazingly affordable prices, so make sure you’re following me on IG!

Learn to make wet cyanotypes and lumen prints: August 18 and 19

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The first workshop was such a success that I'm offering it again! The Wet Cyanotype and Lumen Print Workshop is a two day intensive on August 18 and 19, at my home studio in SW Portland. 

Length: 10 am to 3 pm each day, to take maximum advantage of sunlight, with a break for lunch provided by me unless there are any strict dietary restrictions. 

Saturday: We'll start with the wet cyanotype method, and we'll cover different papers and various ways of altering the emulsion to enhance end results, as well as in the development stage. Each student will be provided with a Jacquard Cyanotype Starter Set, which they'll be able to take home after the workshop to produce prints on their own. We'll also play around with the classic technique. We'll make excursions around the neighborhood to gather leaves and flowers, and play with my extensive library of transparencies. If you have any images on transparencies you would like to bring, please do so! They must be on laser print transparencies and not inkjet. 

Sunday: We'll process our cyanotypes that we left overnight for extra long exposure times and experiment with toning some of the previous day's work, and make lumen prints. I have a wide variety of photographic papers, resin coated and fiber based, with glossy, matte, semi-matte, lustre, and pearl surfaces so students can see the wonderful range of effects possible with them. We'll experiment with toning the prints to enhance the range of colors, using a selenium toner bath. Once again, we'll have a break for lunch provided by me. There is also a Starbucks and grocery store close by if anybody needs anything. 

Price: $375 for both days, all materials included. Students will go home with a boatload of prints and ideas for more! 

Space is restricted to 3 students. As of now one has already committed, so there are two spaces left. If interested in taking the workshop, please email me at krista@kristamccurdy.com

Come explore this wonderful world! 

 

How I Made Over $1000 In April And May As An Artist

As you may know, I've been endeavoring to increase my income from being an artist to replace the income from yarn dyeing, and I'm pleased to say that it has been increasing! Between my Etsy shop, Artfully Walls, and Society6, I made over $1000 in April and May, an increase from February and March...thankfully. It also helps that I've gained more clients in my day job, as a rehab Pilates instructor at Studio Blue in Portland, Oregon. 

April and May Artist Sales

APRIL

April was a good month for me for Artfully Walls, which was nice after such a dismal February and March; in April I made $77.38 from sales on there. Society6 was $38.50 from both the abstracts shop and the more botanical one. After fees and printing costs, Etsy brought in $477.96

Artfully Walls: $77.38
Society6: $38.50
Etsy: $477.96 

Total: $593.84

MAY

May I only made $11.18 from sales on Artfully Walls. Society6 brought in $39.50, almost par with April, and after fees and printing costs, Etsy brought in $533.78.

Artfully Walls: $11.18
Society6: $39.50
Etsy: $533.78

Total: $573.28

Altogether, that makes $1167.12, which is $373.86 more than February and March combined. I'm pleased with that, because it means I am making forward progress in income from art sales. Unfortunately Society6 has pretty much tanked for me since then, so we'll see what happens in the next month and a half. Artfully Walls always feels like a little bit of a crapshoot to me. 

It's slow going, and I do get a little panicky, but I'm so burnt out on yarn that I don't think I can even bring myself to dye the last of it, so I have no choice but to keep going forward!

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Prints of Prints of Prints

(Disclaimer-- this post contains affiliate links. I do receive a small commission if you sign up with Printful) I've been absent from here for a while, but am back! I love that I'm able to offer prints of my work now so easily with the Printful integration with Etsy. Back when I was a practicing artist, over ten years ago, offering prints was a costly gamble. You had to front the money, and there was no guarantee you would sell the prints....let alone being able to afford the money to print different sizes of the same image. Now, there are a plethora of Print-On-Demand (POD) sites, and it's SO easy to offer prints. Printful integrates with a ton of e-commerce sites, like Big Cartel and Woo Commerce, but it also integrates with platforms like Etsy-- in fact, I think it's the only print on demand site fully integrated with Etsy. 

This integration is awesome. All I have to do is upload my images, pick what I want them printed on (Printful offers a wide range of things to print on like T-shirts and mugs as well as art prints), pick the sizes, add my markup price, and list it! All the up front cost to me is the Etsy listing fee and my time. When a customer places an order, It's all taken care of on Printful's end. 

My work works so well as prints. Because the cyanotypes and collages are small, they're very easy to scan. I do have to do all the color editing in the morning with daylight, to get the correct color matching, but that's the only hiccup. What I love is that I'm able to offer prints of pieces that I want to keep the originals of. (reminder to self: remove original Wandering Flowers cyanotype)

 

 

These two collages are ones I made years ago,  and have kept ever since. I love that I can now offer them as prints! It's also super interesting to me to see how my style has changed so much, even though I wasn't really making work between the time I created these and today. Almost as if a separate self was running parallel...... 

Cyanotype Leaves

Although I've mostly stayed away from plant material for my cyanotypes, I've been really inspired by other artists also utilizing the #wetcyan technique with plant material. Check out these artists on Instagram: 

@atwaterdesigns
@hlisasolon
@sstaldermansur
@tone1s
@lindaclarkjohnson
@sue_reno_studio

 

If I've forgotten anyone I shouldn't, let me know! Go to Instagram and search the hashtag #wetcyan and you'll find a wealth of them! I love the way the maple leaves have printed, with that blue "halo". I'm sure it's a chemical reaction that I have no idea about, or basic with acid or....I was terrible at science, but the ones done with actual plant matter really come out differently. I like the surprise, though!  

Let me know how your #wetcyan experiments are coming along and if you have any favorites!