I pulled the best of the best prints and put them on display out in the hallway. Tell all you friends, tell all your family.

Funny Prints that make ya think

Today I was talking to Caleb about making work that was humorous but also had more elements that really beefed up the content. This post is examples of ways to make art that is funny but still provocative. I think what makes most of these pieces successful is that they have something that is a little unsettling. Sometimes a lot unsettling. But it's a way to get beyond just making a funny image. What is the narrative? What is happening in these pieces? What makes you think as well as make you laugh.

Click on links to see the rest of the artist's website.

Sean Star Wars' work is relief but is imagery is great to look at for this kind of example. They are funny and silly but also creepy and weird. When you look at his website notice how the titles add to the content.

Marcel Dzama Marcel is represented by the Richard Heller Gallery. When you click the link you will see other artists represented by that gallery that are worth looking at.

Travis Millard is someone I really love because he combines those creepy and funny elements so well. His website is great, too! These are all drawings.




Mark Hosford is amazing. These are drawings but there are great prints on his website also. He's great at really setting up an interesting narrative.

Laylah Ali works with pretty serious content that reads in her work even though her characters are usually pretty playful looking.


I've shown Michael Krueger's work here before but I'm going to show it again.
Karl Wirsum is a very well known pop artist from Chicago.
And I showed an example of Nick Alley's work in class today. His prints are funny, sad, sweet, creepy, bizarre, beautiful.... the list goes on and on. Nick has really succeeded in combining so many great elements in a print to tell an amazing story. Check out his full website. You should be able to see the prints larger on the website. Look at all the elements, detail and mark-making that is going on in Nick's prints.

Dry Pointers in Action

This is what you guys look like when you do drypoints, wearing fancy pants. The camera doesn't lie.

For Fun

Here is the cake wrecks blog I was telling you guys about. It's fun. Maybe we can pick out a cake for our end of the year cake and ice cream party/justin's retirement from art party. Click on the work blog.

Art With Text

I've compiled some images of different artists who all use texts in their work just to show you guys different ways it can be done successfully.

First is Kime Buzzelli. She places text within the image in a way that can read as texture and shape from a distance. When you look closely at it she its usually a sentence that is a bit provocative and adds to the narrative of the piece.

Lisa Bulawsky uses text in different ways in her prints. The next three images are hers. What's interesting about the text she chooses is how it's not obvious text and it doesn't give away the whole piece of art work. It's just one more piece of the image puzzle.


Tracey Emin uses text in her trace monotypes. Her text can be mysterious and provocative and goes well with the image and like Bulawsky's doesn't give away too much.
John Hancock uses text as a humorous and sarcastic element. By placing it into a banner it incorporates the text in a way that works well with the image.
This etching was made by my undergrad printmaking teacher Nicole Hand. The text she chooses is meaningful because it comes from private letters but she treats the text as a background texture. She chooses to let certain words be more visible and because of that it impacts the content.
The Royal Art Lodge uses text in a humorous way that straddles the line of being obvious and clever. I think they find the right balance.

Squeak Carnwath incorporates text as a sort of collage element. She also re-uses certain phrases in different pieces making it more meaningful in her overall body of work.

I hope these examples help you guys think about how to incorporate text in your work.

Drypoints are here!

Hey guys! Sorry I'm so late getting these on here. As you can see drypoints look a lot like graphite drawings. When you are working on your sketches you might want to use graphite.

Hey Guys this is the trailer for Where The Wild Things Are. Watch it. Love it.

For all the vis com (and everyone else who just likes good design.) people in the class I found this great blog all about design and other vis com like things. Check it out and think about how those design sensibilities can translate to printmaking!

Artists to Discover

Hey everybody!  I hope you guys all agree that we had a great class this morning.  I'm excited to start seeing finished prints, I think everyone is really working hard and will make some great work.  

Here are some artists for you to look at...

I mentioned before that I took two monotype/monoprint workshops this summer.  One of my teachers was Michael Krueger.  He is an artist and teacher at the University of Kansas.  The following two prints are made using pronto plates and monotyping.  Click on his name to see his full website and more bodies of work.

I also took a class with Anita Jung.  Anita teaches at The University of Iowa.  She uses many different materials and processes to make her work.  This piece is a little bit older but I think she uses monotyping processes in this particular piece.  Click on her name to see her bio at U of I and click on the gallery to see more work.
I talked to you guys about the Amazing Hancock Brothers and they are completely amazing.  Both John and Charles combine different kinds of materials and processes to make these crude, hilarious, scary, crazy, strange, bizarre, sexy prints.  They hold nothing back.  Explore their website to see what all they do.  Below is a picture of Charles with some of his work.  The next two pieces are works by John.  

We talked about artists who do hand-cut work to create a strong black and white silhouette look.  These next two pieces are works by Nikki Mcclure.  She's a Seattle based artist who makes her works with hand-cut paper.  These are good examples of exploiting both the black and white while also adding color.  This sort of process will translate well with the pronto plates.

We also talked about Kara Walker.  She uses very loaded imagery but with the silhouette can tell a story in a very subtle way.  Pay attention to the details in the works.  Those details make the image less generalized.  Sometimes it takes the viewer a few seconds to really discover everything that's happening.  That subtly makes the piece that much more powerful.  This is also a great example of using images that may seem vulgar or crude but using them in a way that goes beyond just being vulgar and crude.  This piece isn't a one-liner, it's alarming and frightening.  These are things to think about when working with these kinds of ideas.


Another artist I'd like for you to look at is Nancy Palmeri.  When I first met Nancy she was doing really amazing woodblocks but in the past several years she's been doing monotypes.  She was one of the first monotype artists who made me really appreciate the medium.  Her website isn't up and running yet so I'll update that as soon as it gets going.  I had a hard time getting images of her monotypes on this blog so I'll just direct you to a website where you can see some of her works.  Nancy teaches at University of Texas in Arlington.  She's a neat person.  Check her out!

I hope you guys enjoy these artists.  Feel free to suggest other artists you would like to see on this blog.  You can write up something for me and give me images and websites and I'll get it added!