William H. Hays

William H. Hays prints
William H. Hays prints

William H. Hays is a printmaker who works in linocut and woodblock color printmaking methods. These involve either multiple blocks or a reduction process, in which additional areas of the block are cut away for each successive application of color.

There is a blog post on his website that describes his process, and a short video on YouTube with a step-through of stages.

The reduction process process involves a good deal of forethought and planning, as each color must interact with those that have been laid down in previous passes through the press. He uses both high and low chroma passages to give his pieces both visual drama and reflective subtlety.

His subjects are landscapes, and his process encourages him to refine the landscape elements into discrete areas of color and tone which interlock with other areas to produce a harmonious whole.

 
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Eye Candy for Today: JMW Turner etching and mezzotint

The Woman and Tambourine, etching and mezzotint
The Woman and Tambourine, etching and mezzotint (details)

The Woman and Tambourine (Liber Studiorum, part I, plate 3), Joseph Mallord William Turner and Charles Turner, etching and mezzotint, roughly 7 x 11″ (21 x 29 cm). In the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This was one of the prints Turner created for a 70 plate “book of studies”, he published in the early 19th century.

It was the practice of many artists at the time to work with printmaking specialists, for whom they would create drawings or watercolors as guidelines.

In this case, JMW Turner made brown watercolors as a guide for tone, and etched the basic drawing into the plate himself, turning to frequent collaborator Charles Turner (no relation) to create the tones in mezzotint. (There is a nice short description of the mezzotint process here.)

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Eugène Bléry etching

L'arbre aux racines (Tree with Roots), Eugene Blery, etching
L'arbre aux racines (Tree with Roots), Eugene Blery, etching (details)

L’arbre aux racines (Tree with Roots), Eugène Bléry, etching on chine collé, roughly 5×7″ (11 x 16 cm), in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, DC, which haas both zoomable and downloadable versions of the image.

A wonderful evocation of a deep forest scene, showing the effectiveness of just value and texture to convey mood and atmosphere. The images on the NGA site are actually much higher resolution than the detail crops I’ve provided above.

Chine collé refers to a technique in which a print is made on delicate or thin paper, supported by a thicker material during the printing process

 
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Oleg Denisenko (revisited)

Oleg denisenko, Ukrainian artist
Oleg denisenko, Ukrainian artist

Oleg Denisenko is a Ukrainian printmaker, painter, calligrapher and sculptor who I first featured in 2007, and again in 2012.

His wonderfully eccentric subjects center on figures with elaborate costumes, intricately detailed an accompanied by a range of curious objects. He plays with proportion and scale and varying degrees of exaggeration.

Denisenko appears to vary the color of his printing inks an papers and also works in full color at times.

He shares a website called Antiqvitas Nova with his father, filmmaker Alexander Denisenko (in which they spell their name Denysenko with a “y”, though it’s listed in multiple other sources with the spelling I’m using here).

For more, see my previous two posts on Oleg Denisenko (linked below).

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Francis Seymour Hayden etching

The Lovers Walk, No 1, Francis Seymour Hayden, etching and drypoint
The Lovers Walk, No 1, Francis Seymour Hayden, etching and drypoint

The Lovers’ Walk, No. 1, Francis Seymour Hayden, etching and drypoint, roughly 9 x 13″ (23 x34 cm); in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, look for both download and zoom links under the image.

This deceptively simple etching by the British painter and printmaker (active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) uses sweeping, seemingly casual lines to create texture — and, in effect, color — in a composition that invites you to step into the image. Notice the small, delicately suggested figures to the right of the first grouping of trees (images above, second from bottom).

 
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Some early work by M.C. Escher

Some early work by M.C. Escher
Some early work by M.C. Escher

Many people are aware of the graphic work of Dutch printmaker M.C. Escher that bends logic and presents mind-boggling visions of impossible worlds and structures. Fewer have seen many of his earlier works, that are much more straightforward and “possible” (if sometimes fanciful).

Here are a few examples.

For more images and info, see my previous posts on M.C. Escher.

 
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