the Story: Printmaker and a Glass Artist Exchange

The LeJa Method - as Jan and I like to call it - has been created out of months of experimenting and brainstorming.

An exchange of ideas, a printmaker and a glass artist, coming together to bring traditional block printing methods to results in art glass.
Jan has carved hundreds of linoleum blocks with her original images over the years - we now sell simple glass plates showcasing her prints in different colors. The image is sealed within the glass and appears clear and crisp, little imperfections and unique qualities that speak true to hand printed imagery.
We sell a tutorial on Etsy.com that offers an inexpensive resource for the printing techniques and tips and tricks for different color results.
It started with my desire to get images into my fused glass art. Printing on the glass in my mobiles offer a new potential to tell a story, adding content and texture to my work... I am so process oriented though... so in the end it became more about the process and we really locked down on a simple and successful method of printing in glass.
I have blogged occasionally about the process and the antics - and this post is intended to be a reference - a table of contents of sorts

• Images Printed on Glass - inspiration
• Images on Glass Experiment - the fun begins
  
• Images on Glass II - early experiments
  
• Images on Glass III - and more early results
• Images on Glass IV - experimentis with copper powders
  

we play with different ink types, glass powders, glass frits, other powders and whatnot until we achieved the desired result: a clear image in a variety of colors!

Printing My Yoga Illustrations

New Printing in Glass

"Downward Facing Dog"

I've been printing my yoga ladies into glass... there is more to show... but I thought I'd throw up a taste test

"Forward Bend" Oh and Jan and I have listed more plates in our Etsy store... check it out - there are so many designs to choose from! Check out these wonderful robots (I LOVE!) - the boy robot has tulips and the girl robot is holding books :)

"Robots in Love"

image by Jan Christine

Yoga Ladies Hot Off the Press

Before my friend Jan left to go out of town I visited her studio and printed a few more yoga ladies... I sorta tweaked the first set just a bit (trimmed up odd ankles and wrists and whatnot) and also I had carved a Warrior Pose... all these test prints turned out great! Now I need to start printing these ladies into some glass :)

I Took My First Prints...

My yoga block carvings got their first print pulled today - big Thanks to Jan for allowing me to use her press and helping me out! What fun! Now I know what needs what on these blocks... I think I may work on them later tonight. They look great and they are already good enough that I could print into glass mobiles with them... but I'd like to fine them for printing cards and whatnot...

Jan and I had our last printing session for 2009 today. It was celebratory considering this has been our first year of collaborative printing and experimenting. Every weekend our printed plates and mobiles are getting found and bought by happy customers and in the last week we have suddenly had our first online sales.

So we printed a few plates and circles today, drank iced tea and took note of our first year of selling collaborative work. It takes a while to both fuse and slump the printed glass (there is a queue for the kiln space) and its somewhat of a scheduling challenge to co-ordinate printing sessions... so that is why this is our last big print for the year. We'll see if we run out of printed glass to sell before the holiday season is over!!

I have a few more new plates to list online now too... I'll post here when its done

New Printed Glass in the LeJa Shop

The LeJa shop finally has more printed glass available online! Slowly but surely I am trying to get a wide selection of Jan's hand-carved images represented online... there are so many more its exciting! Here are 5 I listed today:

"Water Faucet" available in 4 different colors $14ea

"Ducks in a Row" $14ea. available in 4 colors

"Rubber Duck" available in 2 colors $9ea

"Salt and Pepper Shakers" $9ea

"Oak Leaf" $19

Fly Fishing in Oregon

Pictured is a mobile created in collaboration with Jan Christine - one of our LeJa creations.
Fish are swimming in the mobile, its gorgeous (if I say so myself).

My father is a fly-fisherman. He lives in NC and each Christmas when I am trying to think of a gift to send him other than some more glass art of mine (which is probably what he would prefer) I stumble upon a book on Amazon called "Fly Fishing in Oregon" and I think
"Oooh what a great gift for Dad, he could read and get tempted to visit and go fly fishing in Oregon". You see, NC and OR happen to be some of the best states for fly fishing, so I sent him the book. Evidently I did this 3 times.

3 times. The exact same book every time. Yep. Each time I have no recollection that I had already sent this "great gift" and finally I was informed and some of the books were returned. Sheesh. Each time I honestly thought it was the best idea ever!
Heres a picture of my Dad scopin' a good spot while on a hike in NC.

How I digress though, these fish in the mobile look like trout to me. Trout are the type of fish that my Dad catches (and releases - he simply likes the process). Jan outdid herself as usual with her carving skills. The reeds and bubbles make the mobile very 3 dimensional to me. I love it. Hope you do to.

Orchid Plate

This orchid plate that Jan and I made is simply gorgeous, if I say so myself :)

It was difficult for me to capture on film... the plate is clear glass, the orchid within it has a deep red flower that sparkles in the sun, and the stem is a lovely chalky green. Jan really outdid herself with this carving (all our printed plates are made with Jan's hand illustrated carved linoleum blocks).
The story behind this carving (because everything has a story!)...

the story goes that a gal came down to the Portland Saturday Market and got to talking to Jan about doing an illustration of an orchid. She came back later that day with a small orchid in a glass Pom cup (you know the ones with the lids that the Pom company no longer bottles their tea in - I love those cups, I would buy the tea just to accumulate the cups, but I digress!) and she wrote down care instructions for Jan in her journal.

The market is full of fun little encounters like this, great stories behind every little piece of art...
Anyhow, this is the carving that she ended up creating from her illustrations. I love it. And it looks quite luscious trapped in glass, especially in this glossy metallic red.
I really struggled to get a good photograph though... so instead you get this whole smorgishboard! There are many aspects the camera simply refused to capture (especially with my lack of camera skillz)... the color of the flower, the delicious saturation of the stem and leaves... ah well, I tried. Come by the market to check it out in person if you'd like! :)

Give-Away: FREE Glass Plate

Today I have been working and cleaning - my tools at home were in desperate need of organization and I happen to be home today... so its happened.

I like to organize things occasionally, I even own and operate a label gun :)

click here for a pictures of my tool organizing

But back to the FREE give-away fun! You can win these plates - they are glass, dishwashable, foodsafe... they were test experiments that Jan and I made earlier this year. The print on them is a hammer, its visible but a little strange... on one plate its yellow and the other plate has a blue hammer. We found this particular experiment ended up too "polka dotted" and not crisp at all... you can see the hammer print, but not as well as we wanted.

As we published in our LeJa Methods Booklet, some of our experiments were less satisfactory than others. If you are interested in our printing on glass techniques, this book is full of good information - one of the most useful parts of purchasing the little book from us is having all of our mistakes already done for you!

Experiments always lead to give-aways... so these plates need a home and I am sure someone will love them. Enter a comment here or tweet your entry - just make sure I can contact you if you win (I'll need you info so I can send them to you). Thanks a bunch for entering and be sure to pass the word along to your friends (there are two plates being given away here, so if you have a friend enter and they win, they could share the winnings with you!)

This give-away will end when I pick a random winner out of all the names submited by August 20th 2009

Printing on Glass

After much patience and hard work - our printing on glass tutorial is now for sale on Etsy!!!

click here to purchase

Here's what you get with purchase:

• step by step info (its a PDF file)
  
• pictures of process and experiments
• video
• supply lists and suppliers
• information about what pigments make what colors after firing

Its 22 pages of goodness. Really - its worth it! As Jan likes to say "$300 in 2 months" and you can now purchase all this information for only $20.

Images on Glass Experiments Ready for Publishing!

Upcoming soon (maybe in the next couple days!?) the booklet Jan and I have been creating, a collection of our experiments and instructions for how to print images into glass... its soon to be available for purchase!
I will be announcing the actual availabilty here in my blog soon... today we finished it up (it was 106degrees out in the shade today, so I hid in Jan's airconditioned studio and we banged out the finishing touches on the booklet). We were so excited to actually finish it! Jan even bound a black/white printed copy and she bound it with orange thread! We even got started creating a listing for it online. Whoopee!

Geeking Out With Type

I think there is an inner font geek inside my brain somewhere.There is something about looking thru drawers of type. Letterpress equipment is fun stuff to hang around, and there is something about the type in particular that is so delicious to me.
All the little metal pieces in their little compartments in drawers, little bits of ink staining the occasional well loved letter...I had my camera with me the other day while visiting Jan in her studio. She has a letterpress and many drawers of different type.
and then there is the bag of random type that is waiting on the to-do list to be put away in their drawers, Jan had a name for this bag of randomness... I don't remember it though. Visually this bag is really appealing to me, how the camera picks up on the occasional letter and the pieces that are still inked... it looks like rubble sort of metal alphabet soup :)

By the way, we have played around with using lettering in our glass process a few times, like on this little plate pictured above.

Images on Glass

I've set up an Etsy shop for the glass pieces that Jan and I have been creating, we call our collaboration "LeJa".

http://LeJa.etsy.com

More plates and mobiles will be listed constantly... I've barely begun to sift thru all the pictures I've taken.

We are working on a small booklet that can be purchased as a .pdf from this Etsy shop that will be a great little how-to on our simple traditional block printing methods transfered to glass. It will be a great resource for what materials work in different ways (ink options and powder options/cautions for colors) and where to purchase many of these materials. We will be sharing the results of our experimentation and collaboration... the booklet will be available for sale soon.

Enjoy!!