Learning More Lessons

Here's a photo I took at school of the vine that clings to the side of the building. You can see that more leaves have turned and some have fallen off. When I walked past the wall, my impression was that the whole had completely turned, but there are still green leaves mixed in with the others.

I spent most of the day taking care of personal business. However, I did go to school, to the printmaking class that I'm taking. I was able to print an edition from one of the photoetched plates that I created recently. It's a nice one, taken from a photo of Spanish Village, down in the sub-patio where they hold the children's clay classes, down where the towels hang on the window bars in the summer. I had prepared six more transparencies with the idea of creating at least one more plate today. However, it rained all day, a relatively unusual event for us in Southern California. Of course, we need the rain, but it did interfer with my plans. It's funny how we take our weather, and our sun, for granted.

One thing that was very interesting to me was a favor I did for the man who teachs enameling classes. He was interested in creating some etched copper to use for enameling. So I prepared a plate for him and he drew on it one day when he was at the Village. Then I put it in the etching solution for him and created the etched plate. Last week when he was in the Enamel Guild, I took it to him, and he immediately asked me if I had printed it. Well, I hadn't, but I told him I would. So I did that today. And it was a learning experience. He had removed the resist in large areas so that they would be recessed and he could eventually fill them with enamel. It's a process called champleve. But the interesting thing was that the recessed areas are not as deep as they would be if the plate were a zinc one. So the ink that was held in those large areas printed as dark brown rather than remaining relatively colorless. In addition, some of his lines were much wider than ones I normally draw. I can see from printing his plate how I can improve my own work, how I can add another dimension.

After school, I stopped at one of the bead suppliers to get pearls. They seem to be very popular right now, and I want to make up several strands. The mistake I made was not getting another strand from the supplier in Los Angeles when I was there. That place had some particularly large ones. I sold a strand of them, and now I can't find any more around here. Oh, well, live and learn.