Workshop with Radha Chandrashekaran + The Pulse!

Last Saturday I attended a fun and fascinating workshop given by printmaker and mixed media artist Radha Chandrashekaran.  She taught three separate techniques: acrylic gel image transfers, kalamkari fabric painting, and takuhon stone rubbing.

Kalamkari is the ancient art of decorating cloth using a kalam (pen) to draw patterns; the tradition dates back to at least 3,000 B.C.E.  Above, Radha demonstrates how to make the kalam by winding woolen cloth around a bamboo stick, then wrapping the cloth in yarn or thread.

A piece of kalamkari- decorated cloth from India.

Radha demonstrates drawing with the kalam.  The wool reservoir holds enough ink to make a long line without "re-dipping" the pen.

Participants get to try it out...

and see what happens...

 

Here Radha explains takuhon, a traditional stone rubbing technique invented in China about 1900 years ago.  Rice paper is sprayed with water and placed over the surface to be printed,

then rubbed with a seed-filled cloth dipped in ink.

Workshop participant Kathleen Piercefield working on one of her pieces.


















This was so much fun that I got quite involved, and didn't take too many photos from this point on.  It's not that easy to participate in a workshop and photograph it at the same time!

A couple of the rubbings I did using Radha's laser-cut wood blocks.

This is a piece Radha was using to demonstrate gel medium transfers.  Please visit her website and take a look at her gorgeous work.



BA-BOOM, BA-BOOM...
No, it's not the sound of fireworks (good guess, though).  Nope!  Guess again...

It's the sound of a PULSE!   More precisely, the 5th edition of The Pulse -- The State of the Art -- "a survey in words and pictures of the online artist community [masterminded by Seth Apter of The Altered Page]. The Pulse is a collaborative project that aims to introduce you to new artists, help you get to know familiar faces even more, and allow you access into the creative hearts and minds of a very talented crew of individuals."  What could be cooler than that?  Get on over there and check it out!

Deconstructed Reconstituted 3-Layer Buddha (With a Cherry on Top)

Ingredients: image transfer, vintage book pages, metallic paper, map fragment, magazine cut-outs, acrylic ink, watercolor pencils, Koh-i-noor pens.  6" x 4"

This was another of the pieces I was working on for the postcard show.  I feel like I should explain the long and somewhat bizarre title of this piece, in case you're wondering.  (And who wouldn't, right?)  So, here's the story:

1. I started by gluing down a bunch of old book pages and stuff, then did the image transfer of the Buddha grid,  using acrylic gel medium.  It worked quite well.

2. I proceeded to paint it and color it and glue more stuff on around it. 

3. After a while, it got all muddy and floopy-looking, so I covered it with more book pages and did the transfer again.  Again, the transfer came out perfectly.

4. I then commenced to mess it up once more, chiefly by way of adding some metallic crayon stuff that I didn't like.  (You never know until you try it, right?)

5. I had one more copy of the Buddha grid, so I thought: why not?  Yep, you guessed it; I covered it with some more vintage book pages, and did the transfer ONE MORE TIME- hence, the "3-layer" part of the title.  This time, the transfer didn't go as well, mostly due to the crappy metallic crayon, which the transfer didn't want to stick to.  So, I thought:

6. It looks like doo-doo, so what's to lose?  I started pulling the layers apart, just to see what happened.  Of course, most of it came apart in pieces.  This is where the "deconstructed" part of the title comes in.

7. But, I had most of the top layer, and a few other pieces that were interesting, so I tried putting them back together to form a semi-complete image, fitting them together like a puzzle.  I felt almost like an archeologist (which I have always wanted to be), piecing together fragments of some broken, long-buried artifact.  Okay, you can see how pathetic my life really is, but I was having fun!  I'm sure "reconstituted" isn't what they actually call it, either; I think that's orange juice, or powdered milk.  Whatever.

8. At this point, I started to like it more, and not just because I got to pretend to be an archeologist.  I now had a sort of pieced-together Buddha made from acrylic gel, kind of a very bumpy and stretchy decal. 

9.  I put some more stuff on the background, and then glued it down, glued on some more stuff, and- Voila!

I'm pretty sure the "cherry on top" is self-explanatory.