Trying out my new materials

I made a small test plate to see how the wood, the ink, and the paper I bought are working for printing. I ended up using a eucalyptus plywood, which is cheap, soft, and readily available at local carpentry shops. It's a bit brittle, but with a little care it works just fine. I have some other kinds of wood, but the grain is quite prominent in them and I think a finer grain probably works better. The ink I bought at Grafex S.A. in Asunción and it works beautifully straight out of the can. I tried various papers I bought at Copel, the only larger paper supplier in Paraguay apparently. They all worked well, and now I have to make the grand decision between various white tones and the gms (weight), which will be of no great consequence in the end. For clean up I simply used vegetable oil on the brayers and also some vinager for the ink slab/floor tile to degrease it. 

I took over my mom's kitchen table the other day and printed my small sample plate. I probably should have toned my plate before cutting it. I got a bit carried away, cut away too much and my sample plate will have to serve as bad example as to what happens when you don't leave enough solid surface to hold ink. The image turned out a bit skimpy. Oh well. I'm glad all the materials worked out just fine. I can place all my orders now and get ready for the workshop in  2 weeks. 

New drawings

Upon my arrival in Paraguay my parents gave me a few new drawings by the artists I will teach they had purchased for me. Once again I love the imaginative forms and compositions, the beauty of the narratives of everyday scenes and the simplicity of the black and white drawings. I simply have to share them with you.

Eurides Gomez

Osvaldo

Almost ready to go

A week from today I'll arrive in Paraguay! It's always so hard to imagine that one can be on the other side of the world in such a short time ('such' being relative...I'll travel 24 hours). But a week from today I'll feel the warm Southern air on my face again. I can't wait considering I woke up to an inch of snow again today. 

I'm almost ready to go. I finally received my last order of tools last weekend. I was getting a bit worried, since it had been almost two months since I ordered them and they were supposed to arrive more than three weeks ago. Below are some of the wonderful tools that the donations money bought. 

I bought five sets of flexcut palm carving tools (they come with bandaids!), five sets of Dockyard 1.5mm micro carving tools for  detail work, several honing strops and sharpening stones. I also bought two Alvin German Rubber brayers and various sizes of the cheaper Speedball brayers. After I arrive in Asunción I'll track down the paper and ink stores which are fortunately both located right downtown and shouldn't be too hard to find. I'm still working on some written handout material and instructions. This is a good excercise for me to gather all the technical vocabulary in Spanish that I'll need.