Sydney Long

Sydney Long, Australian painter
Sydney Long, Australian painter
Sydney Long was an Australian painter and printmaker whose style was influenced by the Australian Heidelberg school, French Barbizon school plein air, Symbolism and Art Nouveau.

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Claude Mellan single line engraving

Face of Christ on St. Veronica's Cloth, Claude Mellan
Face of Christ on St. Veronica's Cloth (details), Claude Mellan

Face of Christ on St. Veronica’s Cloth (alternately: Sudarium of Saint Veronica), Claude Mellan, engraving on paper, roughly 17 x 13 in. (43 x 31 cm); in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (click on image to zoom, click small down arrow to download)

This remarkable engraving by 17th century French engraver and painter Claude Mellan consists of a single spiral line!

Beginning on the tip of the nose, the line spirals outward, its passages of increasing or decreasing thickness defining the darks and lights of the image.

To understand how even more remarkable this accomplishment is, see the Met’s page on engraving, and how it’s done.

There is more information on the engraving and the story it illustrates on Google Art Project, and general backstory on the Sudarium on Wikipedia.

 
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Tavík František Šimon

Tavik Frantisek Simon
Tavik Frantisek Simon

Tavík František Šimon was a printmaker and painter from what is now the Czech Republic who was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

His etchings, woodcuts, aquatints and mezzotints have a wonderful sense of space and air, and yet often retain the visual charm and wiry strength of line drawings.

 
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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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