The Artistic Process: Amy A. Rudberg's Illustration Technique

I'm working on illustrations for a new book about animals and their special powers. For this series, I usually come up with an idea and then do some research on images and decide on composite drawings. I use a pencil to draw the illustration on watercolor paper and then ink the drawing. After the drawing is complete, I staple the watercolor paper to a board for support, stapling at 1" intervals all around the perimeter. I apply watercolors and gouache (a highly pigmented watercolor) with small brushes. When I'm done with the painting, I re-ink the illustration, remove the staples, and store the painting in an acid-free box.

The following is a step-by-step painting from drawing to final re-inking, which took 11 hours to complete.

Materials for this project:
- Derwent 2B pencil
- Faber-Castelli PITT artist brush pen
- Pigma Micron 05 pen
- Gel pens, black and silver
- Maskque pen
- Pencil eraser and mask eraser
- No. 6, 1/4" flat shader brush
- 3 mm / 1/8" flat brush
- 00 round brush
- Winsor-Newton watercolors and gouache
- Arches 12" x 16", 140-lb cold press watercolor paper

Follow the Leader

Draw and ink the figures and horizon line.


Put a mask over the figures to work on the background.
The mask will cover what you don't want to paint.


Add specks on the beach with black and silver
gel pens. Paint the ocean with Pthalo Blue
gouache and dry with hair dryer.


Paint the ocean with Cerulean Blue gouache
and dry.


With a spray bottle filled with water,
spray away the paint in the ocean, and dry.


Paint dark waves with Primary Blue gouache
and dry. The white is the paper showing through.


Paint the beach with Light Gray, dry, and
then paint with Titanium White watercolor.


Dry the beach with textured paper towel
and then paint sparingly with Perylene
Maroon and Primary Blue gouache, and dry.


Spray out paint on the beach and then
add specks with black gel pen, and dry.


Paint waves on the shore with
Titanium White watercolor, and dry.


Completed beach and ocean.


Paint shadows using Tint watercolor.


Remove the mask on the figures with an eraser.


Paint the crab using Winsor Yellow, Cadmium
Yellow, Golden Yellow, Cadmium Orange, and
Cadmium Red watercolors; Cadmium Orange
gouache; and Tint watercolor for shadows.
Dry between each color.


Paint the robots with Perylene Maroon, Cadmium
Orange, and Yellow Ochre gouache; Tint
watercolor; and highlight with silver gel pen.
Dry between each color.


Re-inked crab


Re-inked Robot 1


Re-inked Robot 2


Re-inked Robot 3


Finished painting

Photo Credit: All photos by Amy A. Rudberg, unless otherwise indicated.

The Printmaking Process: Ceramic Printmaking with Eric Jensen

I visited Eric Jensen in his studio in Irving Park recently. As one of the original founders of Lillstreet Art Center, Eric taught at Lillstreet for 15 years and also at Evanston Art Center for nearly 10 years. Sharing studio space with Ed Hinkley (with whom I have studied for the past 2 years), Eric currently sells his ceramic art wholesale to retailers and small business owners. With an MFA in ceramics and more than 20 years of professional experience, Eric continues to experiment and learn how to "perfect" his creative techniques. He demonstrated his version of printing on ceramics.

Creating a Printed Vessel

Mix stoneware and porcelain together until the clay
is smooth and has an even consistency.


Final mixed stoneware and porcelain slab


Transfer a photographic image onto a silkscreen with
a removable frame. (The color of the dried emulsion
is red in this photo. The white areas are where the
"ink" will go through.)

Prepare a silkscreen: In a darkroom, put photo
emulsion on 140 mesh screen on a removable frame
and then dry the screen. Using a bright light
source and glass, expose the screen to a high
contrast b&w photocopied image on acetate. The
light will harden only the exposed white image
areas on the screen and will not affect the dark
areas. When you wash the screen after exposure,
just the dark image areas will wash away, and this
is where the "ink" will go through the screen.
Dry the screen and remove the frame.)


Roll out a porcelain slab about 1/16" thick and the
size of the screened image.


Prepare colored porcelain slip with black mason
stain added by pushing the mixture through a 100-
mesh screen to get out large particles. Put the
screen on the porcelain slab, wet it a little, and
then paint the mixture on the screen with a brush.


Lift the screen off the porcelain slab.


Screenprinted porcelain


After drying the screenprinted porcelain, put it on top
of the previously mixed porcelain / stoneware slab.


Put newspaper on top and press down on the surface
with a small squeegee.


Screenprinted porcelain attached to porcelain /
stoneware slab.


Stretch the clay lifting and throwing it down until the
entire slab is about 1/4" thick (do this about 4 times).


Cut the slab in half to create the main sides of the
vessel.


Use the porcelain / stoneware slab to create two
smaller sides and a bottom for the vessel. Start
to attach the sides of the vessel, which is now
lying horizontally on its side.


Insert mailing bubbles inside of the vessel to
provide support and attach the second screen
printed side.


Move the vessel to a horizontal position.


The vessel was dried, fired in a kiln to harden it,
glazed and then fired again at a high temperature.
The feet were attached after the final firing.


Second screenprinted vessel drying on a shelf


Second screenprinted vessel in its finished state

For more information about Eric and his art, visit http://www.ericjensenceramic.com.


Photo Credit: All photos by Amy A. Rudberg, unless otherwise indicated.

Printmaking: Edvard Munch and Peers

Today, I visited the Prints and Drawings Room at the Art Institute of Chicago, where you can submit a request to view up to 20 prints/drawings of your choice. I tagged along with my husband, who is taking a class on Edvard Munch through the OLLI program at Northwestern University. His instructor, Lois Gordon, put together a thoughtful selection of art (along with a handout) to complement the ongoing show Becoming Edvard Munch, which closes on Sunday. Lois' selection includes Munch's prints not included in the show as well as some art work of Munch's peers, who may have influenced his work.

Solitude, Loneliness, Melancholy

Edvard Munch. The Girl at the Window. 1894. Drypoint, roulette and burnishing on paper, 219 x 158 mm (plate, 444 x 341 mm (sheet). Clarence Buckingham Collection.


Edvard Munch. Two Human Beings. The Lonely Ones. 1894. Drypoint, roulette, and burnisher on copper plate printed on cream wove paper, 168 x 225 mm (plate), 343 x 480 mm (sheet). Clarence Buckingham Collection.


Edvard Munch. The Girls on the Bridge. 1918. Woodcut in blue and lithography (from multiple stones) in yellow, green, orange and blue on white wove paper, 500 x 430 mm (image), 630 x 528 mm (sheet). Clarence Buckingham Collection.


Edvard Munch. Printed by Lassally (German), late 19th-early 20th century). Melancholy III. 1902. Color woodcut from two blocks, with gouges, chisel and fretsaw, on paper, 377 x 471 mm (image), 440 x 590 mm (sheet). Art Institute of Chicago Prints and Drawings Purchase Fund.


Paul Gauguin. Aha Oe Feli? (What! Are You Jealous?). 1894. Watercolor monotype, with pen and red and black ink on tan Japanese vellum, 195 x 232 mm. Gift of Edward McCormick Blair.

Persona of Women

Edvard Munch. Printed by Petersen and Waitz. Woman (The Sphinx). 1899. Lithograph on paper, 461 x 593 mm (image), 494 x 645 mm (sheet). Clarence Buckingham Collection.


Paul Gauguin. Eve. 1889/90. Gouache on millboard, 170 x 130 mm. Gift of Edward McCormick Blair.

Bathers

Edvard Munch. Printed by Sabo or Angerer. Women Bathing. 1895. Drypoint with open bite and burnishing on buff wove paper, 125 x 180 mm (image), 220 x 321 mm (plate), 335 x 419 mm (sheet). Clarence Buckingham Collection.


Edvard Munch. Printed by Halvorsen and Larsen. Neutralia. 1915. Color lithograph on paper, 543 x 495 mm (image), 734 x 585 mm (sheet). Robert A. Waller Fund.


Paul Cézanne. Bathers. 1890-1900. Color lithograph on off-white China paper, 230 x 280 mm (image), 294 x 355 mm (sheet). Bequest of Walter S. Brewster.


James Ensor. The Baths at Ostend. 1899. Etching, with hand coloring, on cream wove paper, 212 x 268 mm (image), 225 x 277 mm (plate), 284 x 398 mm (sheet). Gift from the Estate of Curt Valentin.


Paul Gauguin. Printed by Louis Roy. Auti Te Pape (Women at the River), from Noa Noa. 1893-94. Woodcut on boxwood printed in black, yellow and brick red applied with stencils on tan Japanese paper, 207 x 358 mm (image), 246 x 393 mm (sheet). Albert Roullier Memorial Collection.


Edvard Munch. The Forest. 1908/09. Lithograph on paper, 325 x 416 mm (image), 481 x 651 mm (sheet). Clarence Buckingham Collection.

Édouard Manet. Written by Charles Cros, printed by Auguste Delâtre and Cochet, and published by Librarie de l'au-forte. The Mountain, plate 2 from Le Fleuve. 1874. Etching, drypoint and aquatint on ivory laid paper, 74 x 96 mm (image), 78 x 98 mm (plate), 279 x 243 mm (sheet). Gift of Robert M. Light in memory of Harold Joachim.


Paul Gauguin. Mahana Atua (The Day of God). 1894-95. Woodcut printed in black and touched with watercolor in blue, crimson and orange on Japanese paper, 181 x 202 (image), 184 x 205 mm (sheet). Clarence Buckingham Collection.


Vincent van Gogh. Weeping Tree. 1889. Reed pen and black-brown ink, with black chalk on off-white wove paper, 498 x 613 mm. Gift of Tiffany and Margaret Day Blake.


Odilon Redon. Flower Clouds. c. 1903. Pastel, with touches of stumping, incising, and brushwork, on blue-gray wove paper with multi-colored fibers altered to tan, perimeter mounted to cardboard, 445 x 542 mm. Through prior bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection.


Edvard Munch. A Boat Tied to a Pier. 1892. Brush and black and gray wash, over touches of graphite, on tan wove paper, 224 x 159 mm. Restricted gift of Frank B. Hubachek.


James McNeill Whistler. Nocturne. 1878, published 1887. Lithotint, on a prepared half-tint ground, in black with scraping, on blue laid chine, laid down on ivory plate paper, 171 x 259 mm (image), 170 x 258 mm (primary support), 341 x 498 mm (secondary support). Gift of the Crown Family in honor of James N. Wood.

Munch Himself

Edvard Munch. Self-Portrait. n.d. Blue crayon on paper, 265 x 235 mm. Kate S. Buckingham Fund.


Photo Credit: All photos by Amy A. Rudberg, unless otherwise indicated.