Kate deVillers

First Friday at Bite Studio

It’s been a while since my last site update, but I’m very excited to have a new body of work to share.  I’ll have a small series of new monotypes on view at Bite Studio on Friday, June 7th, 2019.  Bite Studio is located on the corner of SE 7th and Harrison in Portland, OR and will be open to the public Friday night from 6-10pm.  Stop by for art, refreshments and great conversation if you can.

Mon…

Earlier this month, I showed some monotype prints at Bite Studio’s monthly opening.  All of the prints shown were inspired by the early spring blooms of my back yard. My favorite feedback of the evening was from a coworker who declared my prints to be “very metal.”  Above is the moodiest, most “metal” of the series, an up-close rendering of a magnolia blossom.

Last year I made my first attempt at gardening in the back yard of the new house. While the results were less than spectacular, I did manage to grow a few flowers and vegetables, saving the seeds for future seasons. This winter I’m working on illustrations for seed packets to be given away to friends and family in the spring. Here’s a little subtractive monotype with colored pencil of a marigold…

27th Annual Buckman Art Show & Sell

This weekend I participated for the first time in Buckman Elementary school’s annual arts and crafts sale.  30% of all art sales went directly to Buckman, a Southeast Portland school with a focus on the arts.  It was a pleasure to meet some of the talented students and their endlessly enthusiastic teachers, and it was an added bonus to have excellent neighbors around my little booth.  I hope to…

First Friday art exhibit at Bite Studio

This is “Paphiopedilum II,” one of nine orchid prints I’ll have on display at Bite Studio’s First Friday art opening tonight.  I’m sharing the walls with fellow printmakers Lynn Maritch, Peggy Masters and Kay Myers, who will be showing monotypes, collagraphs and mixed media collages.  Great art, wonderful company, and excellent refreshments…what better way to spend a Friday night? You can find…

This is an etching I began back in 2012 that never looked quite right to me.  I struggled for years to figure out how to achieve evenly aquatinted tones, and just when I seemed to be getting it right, it appeared that this plate had been lost.  I’ll spare you the details of the vermin visitors in the shared printmaking studio, except to say that a massive cleaning undertaking resulted in the…

This is one of three phalaenopsis orchids rescued from the clearance rack of a big box grocery store back in 2014.  I took dozens of photos of the flowers promptly after bringing them home, which was a good thing, as this particular plant died very quickly from what I guessed to be crown rot.  When backlit, this orchid’s column gave the illusion of containing a large eye, topped by a smaller,…

I’m taking a break from my 365 monotype challenge to wrap up work on etchings for an art opening next week.  As soon as I file the edges of this plate, it’ll be ready to edition…it may even be dry before I mat and frame it! The marks on the flowers were made using a technique that’s new to me:  sugar lift.  This is an aquatint method that results in painterly, expressive areas of tone. The areas…

Nowadays, when drawing flowers from life, I’m careful to take documentary photographs, as an etching is never completed while the plant is still in bloom.  No photos were taken while making the preliminary drawing, which made it difficult to complete the etching. After about two years of aquatinting, scraping, burnishing and re-aquatinting, I decided that this would be the completed state of the…

365 challenge #19, 21, 22

In the above photo, I’ve found a solution for using thin Japanese papers for monotype.  The paper has to be dampened or the watercolor won’t transfer when printing, and the dampening turns the paper outside the printed area into a crinkled mess.  I decided to cut the paper down to the 4″ x 4″ printed area and glue it to a larger sheet of paper with wheat paste. This was a pretty faint ghost…

365 art challenge #18, 19, 20

Monotypes no. 18, 19, 20 and ghosts with relief printing, hung up to dry.  It seems simple enough to roll ink onto a relief block, but learning exactly how much ink should be applied takes a lot of trial and error.  Once the block is inked, is it better to hand-transfer the ink to paper by rubbing, or by running it through a press?  The challenge of printing by hand is getting the ink to print…

365 art challenge #18

Monotype no. 18:  Aquarelle crayons dissolved in water, painted on plexiglass prepared with gum arabic.  The gum arabic beads up slightly when applied to the plexiglass, and is visible in the print in the lower right hand corner.  Every tutorial I’ve read on watercolor monotypes suggests lightly sanding the plexiglass first, to give the watercolor a bit of “tooth” to hang on to, and I’ve…

365 art challenge #16 & 17

Monotype no. 16 & 17:  oil based relief ink on plexiglass with relief print. The above prints are on a lovely Japanese paper called Kitakata.  Below are prints on mystery scraps of Western paper.  I have quite a lot of Kitakata paper in a unique shade of light green, and am resigning myself to the fact that it may not be useful for this project. These prints were spared the etching press during…

365 art challenge #15

Monotype no. 15:  Aquarelle crayons dissolved in water, painted on plexiglass prepared with gum arabic; also relief printed with Gamblin oil based ink.  A recent “once every 30 years” snowstorm paralyzed our city, leaving me so restless with captivity I had to carve a little wood block.  I never quite got the hang of relief printing, so there are several variations of this print in the works, as…