The Amazing Hancock Brothers

I had a great time second week at Frogman’s studying with The Amazing Hancock Brothers: Charles + John. We learned down-n-dirty carving, printing, transfer and stamping techniques while chugging coffee and getting visibly winded. I got a 12″ x 12″ woodblock and a linoleum block of the same size carved and proofed during the week, and I’m inspired to create some more now that I’m home!

Drawing Demo.

Below is an image showing a transfer John showed us using Citristrip. It worked great! You can use the gel for a slower acting transfer with the press (or burnished by hand) or the spray for a quicker reaction time. Here’s a link to the gel version if you want to check it out for your transfers sometimes. It’s fairly low-odor, made for indoor use:

With the gel, you just paint it on the back of a xerox copy, put it face down on your block, wait a few minutes and then test burnish a spot. If it is transfering, you can either hand-burnish the whole thing or run it through the press at printing pressure.

Below is John working on a transfer with the spray version of Citristrip. To use the spray, you just apply it to the back of the copy, put it face down on the block and then run it through the press. It takes less time to get to work than the gel.

Below are a couple of detail shots from my first block of the week, carved on 12″ x 12″ MDF board:

More carving:

Above is the second block I carved during the week. It is a linoleum carving that I printed on paper and fabrics. I’d like to eventually do some screen printed color layers in the “Starship 2000” area.

For this drawing, I gave myself the rule of only using resource images I’d taken of our adventures over the past couple of months to create the composition. It was a fun experiment, and I will probably make a few more prints in this vein.

The above is a bird that was yelling at me the first day we set up the workshops. Its baby was on the ground, unable to fly yet and unafraid of humans.

Proof of the carved image above and a couple prints on fabric below.

Uncle Chuck showed us his famous stamping techniques and dumpster-diving strategies, and some students really went to town with it, creating works such as these ceiling tiles below.

Mini linoleum face I carved:

More awesome work from other students in the class including Josh, Linda & Matt:

Art studio fashion with Cat Snapp:

To check out the prints I made week I, see my previous post HEAT STROKE SCREEN PRINT. I’ll be posting more about Frogs soon. We had a lot of fun, so I have lots of show-and-tell to post here! Blake and I have been back in our new home in Murray, KY for a few days now and are starting to get settled in, so I’m sure we’ll be back to sharing our cooking adventures soon, as well. Last night we had a delicious tuna melt on homemade olive bread with brown rice and broccoli with toasted almonds.