Art & Books: January 2004 Archives

I've been interested in working with a view camera for a while now, and with the photography class I'm taking this semester giving me access to a decent darkroom, I've been shopping around for a camera. What I've found is that large-format cameras are hideously expensive.

On the other hand, people seem to want to hand me medium format cameras every few days. So now I have a 120mm camera, and Noel's uncle may either sell or lend me his 6x6 camera with lenses. This will allow me to do small contact prints or maybe some enlargements.

With our plans to build a shed out back this summer for use as a workshop, things get much more interesting. I'd actually be able to build a darkroom from scratch, if I were so inclined.

Spent the day doing arty crap with Christo and his friend Celeste. I introduced them to the wonder that is the linoleum print. I did a brief discussion of what is required for Christo, then we went down the Pearl and did some shopping for tools (and met Celeste), then we went to the Art Store and did more shopping. The Art Store had watercolour paper on sale, which made me very happy, although they were entirely out of the sizes I wanted in the hot press, which is my preferred texture.

When I got home, there was a Dick Blick catalog waiting for me with even more watercolour paper on sale. Yum.

I was telling Noel a weird story last night about how it would be if dogs went to school the way kids do, and he suggested I use that for my linoleum block book. Interesting idea, but I'm not very good at drawing dogs. Although I'm sure I would get good pretty fast with the amount of drawing that would require.

Now that I've read a book on Japanese wood block printing, I have a better idea of how complex the multi-colour blocks will be. With modern transfer techniques, I'm sure things will be much easier than the traditional method. I just need to work out the logistics.