We signed up for the BIG INK workshop in Albuquerque on April 13th and 14th, 2024 at the FUSION FORUM art space:
BIG INK is touring their BIG TUNA Press around the country, for printing huge woodcuts between "24 x 36 inches/40 x 96 inches" -- the maximum woodcut size being just shy of 4x8 feet!
THE PLAN
- A group of up to THREE PEOPLE may register to carve a single woodblock on one board. Please list your names in the “Order Notes” field when registering:
Our BIG INK team in Albuquerque (left to right):
Virgil Velasco, Henry Morales, Ellie Weadock
These artists cut down a 28" x 48" piece of MDF into three 16" x 24" panels, and will carve the panels individually:
- We recommend cutting your wood to fit inside a drawing portfolio before carving. These sections can be pieced together on the press. Remember that each cut will create a thin white line in the finished print, so plan your design accordingly:
Painted 24" x 48" board
cut down into 16" x 24" panels
Then when BIG INK comes to town, they will ink and piece the woodcuts together to made one big EXQUISITE PRINT.
UPDATE (January 16, 2024): The artists got together in Henry Morales's studio to brainstorm with their first sketches:
The first sketches laid out together
Henry Morales, Ellie Weadock, and Virgil Velasco
conferencing
Collective drawing
***
UPDATE: The second collaborative meeting at Henry Morales' studio on January 23, 2024:
The print sketch so far
Virgil has carbon paper below his sketch,
which he is transferring to the board
Virgil's sketch
Close up of Ellie's sketch
Close up of Henry's sketch
Ellie makes the "First Cut"
BIG INK sent some supplies
(and also some paper packs)
***
Meanwhile in Oaxaca, Mexico -- Julianna Kirwin of Albuquerque is ready to carve the two panels she found down there:
Julianna Kirwin in Oaxaca
with her panels
PREVIOUS BIG PRINTS
EL PASO
This is a great way to answer El Paso -- where during the PRINT PACHANGA last July 2023 Marco Sanchez cranked out large print masterpieces at the El Paso Museum of Art:
ALBUQUERQUE
Henry Morales has carved a big woodcut before, during a Zozobra/Steamroller event in Albuquerque in 2020:
SIDE HUSTLE
While obsessing with big prints, we need to carve another big one out on the CNC at Quelab.
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Ruben Urrea Moreno did this before, and brought his large woodcut from Tucson to make a steamroller print in El Paso during the Chalk the Block festival in 2015:
It could take forever to raster a 3x3 foot piece of MDF on the CNC machine:
It would probably take forever
to carve this image created in Midjourney AI
into a big piece of MDF on the CNC
However we might CNC a SVG vector file (like this one we did into acrylic), and hand carve the details later.
We might even be able to proof the big woodcuts with the hand barens we are waiting for from ARTEINA in Barcelona:
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*****
We are looking forward to printing with BIG INK on April 13th and 14th, 2023 at FUSION FORUM -- 708 1st St NW, Albuquerque:
