kcolell’s blog

Put the CLU Senior Art Show BE BOLD on your calendar. Opening is April 25 in the Kwan Fong Gallery. Reception will be April 30th beginning 5:00pm Ten artists including Aihua Zhou, Amy Shibel, Chloe Warden, Christy Sutphen, Kristiann Lopez, Lindsey Tucker, Maxwell Buchanan, Rachel Ferguson, Sheila Barrera, and Tuan “Jason” Nuygen will be showing their artwork. Artwork includes, drawings, paintings, sculpture, ceramics, photography and printmaking. Jason Nuygen is presenting as part of his senior work a commissioned portrait painted in tribute of Maria Altman, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Austria who waged a successful legal battle to reclaim five Klimt paintings stolen from her family by the Germans during WWII.

Spring Semester at CLU has brought an additional room to the Printmaking program. The printmakers are participating and experiencing solar plate, dry point, etching, aqua tint, monotype and lino print processes. There are two printmaking labs A-1, home to “Laguna” our original electric press and the newest edition inhabiting B-1, a Takach manual press, un named as yet. Print makers travel between the two labs regularly Mondays and Wednesdays.

B-1 houses printmaking 330 and 430, and the Senior art show. Lots of activity and art coming from the print shops.

Visit us when you are in the area

Kristi Colell, CLU printmaking instructor brought Mitch Lyons master printmaker and creator of the printmaking process “Clay Monotype” to the University student printmakers. The workshop was a huge success.
Rachel Ferguson felt the workshop provided “an environment that was easy to be creative in. Clay Monotype is a media that allows students endless possibilities to be successfully expressive.”

Since 1968 Mitch Lyons has been pioneering his image making from a slab of clay. First a slab of stoneware clay is rolled out about 1/4.thick. After allowing the slab to dry to a “leather hard” consistency, colored slips are made using China clay and permanent pigments. These colored slips are brushed on, dried and rolled into the clay slab, one color over another, building the design with images, colors and textures on the “matrix”.
Once the slab is rolled flat, a moistened piece of paper/canvass is placed over the slab. Pressure is applied using a rolling pin to transfer the clay slips onto the substrate. Because China clay is inert and the pigments used are permanent and stable, the clays remain intact and will give pleasure for many years.

There was a huge sense of satisfaction and achievement by the end of the September 15-18 Clay Monotype workshop. According to Ashley Bowman, “Clay monotype printing is unlike any art form.” It’s like a combination of ceramics, painting and printmaking. The reason clay monotype print making is so appealing is because everyone starts at the same level. It allows the artist an opportunity to not think about the finished product and more about the creative process.”

kcolell says:
October 4, 2010 at 12:37 pm (Edit)

Printmaking retroactive from June 2010

I read “True innovators in the art world, and Mitch Lyons is one of them,
making the complex appear to be so simple, so clear… Mitch has added to the vocabulary of contemporary art.
(Leonard Lehrere, Department of Art and Art Professions, NYU)

I read the above and my husband and I packed up the Lamb and family dog and drove to Sante New Mexico to attend a workshop with Mitch Lyons on the art of the Clay Monotype Process. What an inspirational experience!

Since 1968 Mitch Lyons has been pioneering his image making from a slab of clay. Inspired by the Paleolithic clay print/paintings of Lascaux and Altimira Lyons re innovated the process of making imagery from a slab of stoneware clay. No printing press is needed. First a slab of soneware clay is rolled out about 1/4″thick. After allowing the slab to dry to “leather hard” consistency, colored slips are made using China clay and pigments. The colored slips are brushed on, dried and rolled into the clay slab, one color over another, building the design with images, colors and textures on the “matrix”.

As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words so following some beautiful images created by Mitch himself and the workshop participants I decided my printmaking students at CLU had to have this clay monotype printmaking experience.

The Colell family loaded up the car and returned home and I introduced my summer school printmakers to Clay Monotype Printmaking. What fun we had. Carolyn Ryan entered a combination of a textile/ printmaking art piece into a national art show and placed second. Outstanding. Cameron, Katrina , Nate, Myrna and Sharon produced very handsome clay monotypes during this summer experience.

As soon as I figure out how to attach photos of the artwork I shall do so.

Lenten window

May/June  means it is time I prepare my traveling portfolio to be shown in Florence,  Italy at the Santa Reparata Art gallery.  My work is an exploration of the Centurian “the predecessor” to a rural ediface of 2008. (note the print images)

By making the most of discovering, then reinventing the past I can pay tribute to the  family’s old farm history as seen through images of the “Centurian”.

Important lessons of life can be found from the past.  I am incorporating methods of drawing, chine colle and solar etching to develop the building’s  story.

This summer come by (A-1) in the art building any Thursday afternoon, 1:00pm-3:00pm, and meet me. I am Kristi Colell, the Printmaking instructor here at CLU. Maybe you have taken an art history course that introduced you to Rembrandt and Durer, master printmakers of the Northern Renaissance? Perhaps you have,”how did you do it?” questions. Check out the copper etching and woodcut relief processes that these Renaissance masters perfected. Both Rembrandt and Durer’s painting, drawings and prints had enormous impact on their contemporaries and influenced the style of many later artists inspiration for future generations.

Our printmaking courses here at CLU offer you the opportunity to work in a medium that artists from medieval times to today have used to express their creativity. Printmaking I is offered this Fall Monday and Wednesday afternoons. If you are interested come visit me any Thursday this summer,(10:00-1:00pm),  or give me a call 805 797 3018.

Invitation to any of my CLU printmakers, if you want to work in the print shop and add a new Edition to your portfolio, join me in A-1 Thursday afternoons, June through July.

Highlights from the printmaking students of the 2008-2009 semesters include visiting  the Getty Museum, participating in four art shows held in the Kuan Fan Gallery on campus, and all of our own CLU senior art shows.( See Chase Hamano from Printmaking I working on a drawing) Printmakers from Winter 2008 and Spring of 2009 have produced some wonderful pieces of art as seen in the senior art shows. (See photo of Caitlin Bailey at work and her wood print.) Printmakers have sold their work and successfully entered work in art contests. (Jason Nuygen with Colell at the Ink and Clay Invitational art show in Pomona) Sophmore Jason Nuygen won entrance into the the prestigious Clay and Ink invitational art show. He was granted a financial award from Tryptych Art to study in Florence Italy this summer. Jason has also been invited to show his artwork at the Santa Reparata Art Gallery in Florence.

All Printmaking students have produced solar prints from either drawings, paintings, computer illustrations  or modified photographs. In the Spring of 2008 Dan Welden, International printmaker, came to CLU and offered a workshop to the CLU printmaking students as well as faculty members. Check out Welden’s website (http://www.danwelden.com) . Printmaking instructor Kristi Colell is teaching a mixed media art course this August for Dan Welden’s month long summer workshop held in Florence Italy. She too will be showing her artwork at the Santa Reparata gallery.

Printmaking is a fun, creative class offered this summer 2009, Tuesdays and Thursday (10:00-1:00) and this Fall and Spring Mondays and Wednesdays. A variety of printmaking processes are covered from classic copper etching (Rembrandt), Woodcut, (Durer), to contemporary monoprint, monotype, solarprint and ImageOn. If you can take a picture or draw,  this course is for you. Printmaking instructor is Kristi Colell, graduate of Marymount/Loyola University and Villa Schifanoia school of art in Florence Italy. Colell is an artist and presently serves as a judge for the Los Angeles Music Center BRAVO teachers award as well as an Examiner  for the International Baccalaureate program based in Cardiff England.

Contact Kristi Colell for further information:
cluprinter@yahoo.com
kcolell@callutheran.edu