Oregon Art Beat; #1016; Gene Flores

Order the eye on my se eller. Bye. I'll tell you when I see the word. I don't know. It's done. There's a lot of ideas. Okay, now then I'm going to I'm going to do a little bit more of this.

I'm going to do a little bit more of this. It looks good. I was having trouble earlier, they would skip.

The last print would skip and you would see like this little double line. And it was just too much pressure. So when it was going through, you know, slip a little. And then when it come back, it realign itself. But that one, two or three inches, you see the still double line. So those, I mess up like that. I just start hand coloring. Yeah. Because that one's ever going to see the double line. So then this just goes on top of my other stack that I'll. How many? How many? I'm printing 15. Perking. Someone print 15. I'm actually going to print like 19. For whom I'll keep for myself to hand color and manipulate and play around with. Tell me about what this image is. This is an exchange for Australia. And the theme is the... Oh, what's it called? The Hippocratic oath. And this is... We did the first part. This is the second part, which is the total cause and the whole person. So what I did is... It's based on past and present.

And a lot of my imagery has this screaming face, which is sort of me all the time. And I was seeing a show on PBS about the Mayan. And how they've deciphered the glyphs. And they showed this one of a woman piercing her tongue and blood letting. And then setting the paper on fire. And the vision she came out with was this serpent, which is the Quetzalcoatl, with her ancestor coming back out talking to her. And at the end, they said, well, this is the whole person, which fit the whole theme of what I was trying to do. I drew him out and I couldn't figure out how he was going to tie him with the second half. And then when I saw that, I was like, oh, that's what I need. And that's what I drew it in. So it's sort of this double mouth of screaming and then his tongue coming out and speaking about his past. And then the past is coming back out. And then him spitting out this plume of smoke. I went to Mexico City. I went with a art historian who knows how to read Mayan Higgs hieroglyphs, picked a grass. And he was telling me every time

you see a person or a serpent or an animal that has this plume of smoke coming out, it represents and shows that there are deity. So that's why I was sort of going back and showing this smoke coming back out. Now do you, I know she did this as a dip -titch, but you could have done it in just one shoot. I could have done it in one, but we had agreed to do dip -tick with Australia. We decided to go ahead and do a dip -tick with each one. I see. So that's a come this template is actually set up for being spaced apart this way. Mm -hmm. But when I printed it, it just looked awkward because of the way these line up. It just threw it off, so I just said the heck with it. They're going to get it as a dip -tick, but butt it up against each other. It just makes more sense. Okay, beautiful. Hey, how about we grease up those one more time? No, don't you purchase print message. We just use our intentions to print it. Well, I think the fortune has got a lot of ink. Yeah. Yes. All right, so we'll let you back again. Go ahead. Okay, I'm going to get this light in a little bit more

like this. I have to make sure I ink these right because my students see this. They're going to chastise me. You never showed us that way. Oh. Oh. Fancy duct tape. Yeah. Okay. Oh, really? Yeah, it's only a brand new. All right. That's what I need now. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Can you tell me just a little bit about

as you're picking, they need to off. You want some. Can you get them all right? Just so he doesn't have to look across. You want some of some color in the in the background. It's not going to be. I mean, it's going to be because I saw it in the print you made. There's a residue. It's called plate tone because copper. It's when it's milled. It's actually rolled out in these sheets and it has really fine grain like wood. And the oilier. That's a comment. He's this oil with my ink. Some people just use it straight out of the can. I've never been taught that way. I always taught to manipulate it and add some more oil to it. So the oilier you get it, the more of a plate tone at least behind. So it's some people hate it. Some people love it. So you'll see some print makers actually get a piece of news print and hand wipe it on top to get as much of that plate tone out. I think it's really beautiful. I think it adds a lot to the print. So I just let it be a lot of my plates. I mean, I'll have scratches right through it because it's that's the way the copper is. And a lot of print makers will go in there and just meticulously stick all these little scrapes on. And I don't. I just sort of let it work. And then if it interferes with my image and I'm going to

scrape out a little parts of it and that, I just leave it and see what happens. Thank you. That was interesting. Casey, can you ask that question again? We never use my question. So don't worry. And usually what I'll try and do is give you a heads up and I get inside politics. Thank you. And leave frame. Beautiful. No. Go ahead and place it in there. Beautiful. If you want to hang on there. Every damn shot is a good job. I like doing these things more than once. That's great. We should screw up more often. We're going to get over

here. Hey, Monix, come back a little bit more. Just a little bit more. Just a little bit more. Hang on, let me get a focus here. Hang on, and okay. And the reason I do the paper that way is it's called damp boxing, which you soak your paper. And then you blot it really quickly and then you wrap it in plastic, take all the air out, keep it air tight, then you put it under a heavy weight. And what that does is since paper is fibers, the longer it soaks, the looser it becomes. So what I do is I have it that way. It sits under weight and the fibers start loosening up and it makes more pliable for the print to come out. So it prints a heck of a lot better than what I'm going to do earlier. Really? Yeah. It just, you'll see in 90 days. Yeah, that's a guy I just want to do. Not the back because they don't want

anything to prints anywhere. Yeah. So I'll go up and I'll just go up. That's a good over it, you guys. So this will just be either a part of the edition or another artist's proof. That's the nice thing about printing. This will be the edition. It will, okay. The artist's proofs are actually on smaller paper. The edition is actually a set size. So it's tricky trying not to keep all these little fingerprints on the side. But what I do is once it's dry, since it's a small residue, I can go with an eraser. I just knock out those fingerprints out. Tricky part with the dipstick is making sure you have it right. I have students that'll put it up in print. No, let it up. They'll put the plate on backwards or upside down. They just ruin the plate. Oh, yeah. Press it. Keep it. Put it up and draw on it. Colleges do whatever you want with it. Anything is good. Mm -hmm. Can

I go with the bigger print net? Yeah. Yeah. All right. And let me get on the right side again. I'm going to ask a question. I think a printing S being kind of messy. Yeah. You have to constantly be tidying up after yourself, don't you? Yeah. My students just laugh at me because my hands stay fairly clean, even with a little dirty. And I'll see them. And they'll finish doing one plate. And their hands are like caked with ink. And I'm like, you guys. Who are you guys doing cleaning up the x -on bulb? These over there or something? They just... It's getting used to it. I said, plus, you know, I have 20 -someone years on them. Is there a tendency to put the ink on too thickly? Yeah. They'll just take it on. And then they'll... It takes them forever to wipe the plate. And I'll tell them I see you guys... You just need to have enough to cover the surface. And then go from there. And it's just

learning how to manipulate the ink enough. If it's a straight line drawing with no tone in it, then you can keep your ink a little stiffer. And if you have a lot more tone, then I tell them loosen up your ink. It's easier to wipe. Because you're covering such more surface, you need to have the ink a little looser. And then go from there. And then go

from there. And then go from there. And then go from there. And then go from there. This is the front I taught my students is the hardest thing to do is... learning how to wipe a plate correctly and consistently because when you do an addition no because in order to if you have an addition you want every single print to look as exact as the one before so in order to know how to do that is how much ink did you leave the first time if you leave too much ink on it's a under wipe if you put take too much off it's a over wipe and you can tell and I'll come up and I'll be like it's funny they'll come up and he's like Gene how does this look like over wipe how does this look under wipe so if

that's a hard part so you know the drawing parts not not hard I say anyone can draw a hard part is how do you wipe it how do you print it consistently because I may look beautifully on the plate but it prints terrible doesn't matter no I have some students I just they love their plates the plates look gorgeous but then the prints are just horrible that's that's the one thing I love about printmaking is it'll expose every single weakness you have in drawing you can't hide from it oh damn yes just go hold on one second yeah yeah

yeah all right

yeah yeah change the pressure I thought it's I mean don't rush on our account yeah yeah yeah

all right hold on okay you're gonna damp this with the towel too then I'm gonna blot it out yeah yeah yeah

all right pressure was too light you can tell because you can see the texture of the paper hmm

like a top line running through the can sort of see what's what's everything that it's not all right yeah see this texture oh should it be it should it should be flat I mean if you look at the other one you did yeah it's a really flat tone see the texture show me again we can't really see this texture compared to how flat the tone is on here you can sort of see this texture of the paper actually oh it's like the lines the little tiny lines oh yeah so the pressure wasn't enough to push it down a little more did point to the right one again for me this one good thank you okay good okay I'm gonna ask one more question though okay tell me a little bit about this this imagery this is really

wild this is um we saw a documentary called why we fight and they had um basically talking about the industrial military complex so that whole theme stayed with me when I was doing this print of this you know who's really in control of of why we fight and it's sort of you know Democrat Republican their dreams of the future weapons and then all the chicken hawks so it's all my little chicken men but they have a little mask of hawkbeaks on them sort of persuading them and bowing down to these guys and then this little guy looking down he really look hard he's looking down a little bullets that's a spill on the floor little bullets so it's it's the boat which is a Viking boat which of course went everywhere and pillaged and then sort of adding the military you know cannons the rubber wheels this is a a junk boat um next again once my quits a quaddle coming in again and then it's just the little puppet masters underneath them so it's actually not the

donkey and the elephants actually people playing with them as the puppets so they're being puppets for everyone so when you do a print like this do you think oh I'm gonna do this because it's gonna be popular and sell or I just have to get this image out of my head I just do it I rarely ever think about football sell and I'm not really attached to my work once it's done it's done I'm worried about the next piece so I really don't say oh this is great I'm gonna keep this one and I'm not it's never been my interest it's more of what's the next piece gonna look like so like I tell my students is what I'm doing now hopefully five years from now will look terrible compared to what I'm doing five years from now so it's really it's all about warning and angering so it's nice I mean I get to play around with this and this just went from stage to stage to stage so almost there is it still a thrill when you pull back and do the reveal yeah there's some when I just will like oh my god that's our KG get over it get over

yourself yeah because there's some that you just pull out because you know this one will take me weeks just drawing all the little details and then there's some that'll take me an afternoon that'll be just as powerful and when I peel back I'm like got it that that's all that needs I don't need anything else it's done so she's not gonna get you to point your couple things on the good one for me the chicken ox in the lower right this one yeah just like I just like this where he's looking at the little bullets in here and then his little beaks with the you know he can see the little straps attaching them the kind of scary okay show me the the major puppet heads which is this one the Democrat and Republican and it's interesting because if you look at it the Democrat you know the donkeys looking down at his manipulating him whereas the Republicans actually looking at the Democrats are the same don't tell anyone you know and then has a little polls pulling the ears and playing around with their hands and point to the instruments of death and destruction which is the canon you know all these

guys which are visions it's it's a different technique called soccer which makes it look like a pencil so it's not really it's it's not concrete yet with them but their idea of oh this one could come up next and then it's more of you know the quote to quote a Viking ship so even though this one didn't come out uh with the right pressure and you see too much of the grain can you save it by hand color yeah yeah I'll go in and hand color the whole thing there you go yeah what area we shifted to over here okay I can be able to see all my shoulder what time did you guys want to eat 12 -ish probably it gets all of this and you may have to have probably some of any color and then okay okay should the art be in the area that's actually really nice clock

hmm hmm hmm

hmm hmm hmm

hmm he just gets pretty boring from back of that's all I do is I could use a little more actually yeah fine focus but let me ask you a quick question just about the technique um the fact tell me again about the stylists that you use as opposed to what most people use um my undergrad professor Kurt Camp is the

one that um this is actually one of his he gave me and it's basically just it's a jeweler's tool but I use it to hold a sewing needle so I just get sewing needles and pop them in and what's nice is I can control it and it allows me to get really great detail and it's a nice size because it's like a pencil so it gets really beautiful because I can come in and just get some really fine detail and what's also nice is unlike the stylists which is this thing um this works fine but when you're breaking through the ground if I'm drawing on this and I'm breaking through this ground sometimes the point is too sharp and you start scraping the copper what's nice about the sewing needle that's not that sharp it has actually it's a little bit rounded at the edge so I don't have to worry so much about scraping as much of the copper and it edges a lot cleaner because in fact you don't want to scratch the copper you're going into the ground and then it goes into an acid bath is that correct? so yeah so I'm basically just removing

the asphalt from the acid resist just enough to expose the copper and if I scratch too much of the copper underneath the ground and you create these birds and it you start getting these really jaggedy lines which is not what you want or at least not what I want I like this nice crisp line and I'll just build tone up by using poignolism so I'll actually do most of the time I'll do two or three processes so I'll do this straight line edge and then I'll throw a soft ground on to get more tones and I'll throw an awkward tone on top of that to get even more tones oh my gosh so I'll go through a lot of steps and then I'll sometimes I'll draw on top of the proofs just to see what they look like and then some I just leave half finished and I'll just hang color and change it that way so it's not the same old thing so

so so so I'm

trying to get what I can put there yeah I don't want to rick your ass I can't put anything just to make dots there's basket oh very nice here oh yeah i'm here or are they in the house? they're in here I'm going to add a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt and a little bit of salt

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salt My signature shot you'll get you a ladder I'm going to do a little bit more of this,

and I'm going to do a little bit more of this, and I'm going to do a little bit more of this, and I'm going to do a little bit more of this, and I'm going to do a little bit more of this, and I'm going to do

a little bit more of this, and I'm going to do a little bit more of this, and I'm going to do a little bit more of this, I'm going to do a little bit more of this,