Balloon Fiesta

After about two and a half hours of sleep, I got up at 4:30am to catch Mass Ascension at the Balloon Fiesta. This is the early morning event where all 700+ balloons take off within minutes of each other.

I took a million pictures. Click below to see a few of them.

The group was me, Celina (driver), Yuli, Mick, Ana. Traffic was pretty heavy around the Balloon Park but we got there in plenty of time to see the very first balloons take off in the dark. It's pretty cool when they fire up and light the whole balloon.


The sunrise was pretty coming over the mountains. It also helped warm us up a bit.


Here's a panoramic shot... and yet only the tip of the iceburg. So many balloons!


Representing my Missouri teams hardcore. (M-I-Z... Let's Go Blues!)


Pretty pretty.


God Bless America!


There was seriously a balloon shaped like a dead cat.


Patriotic Lighthouse... hooray!


Holding Hand Bee Balloons (but not really).


But I think my favorite shape was the Smokey The Bear Balloon!


Here's a view of the field after most of the balloons had taken off. I think they said it's about the size of 54 football fields. And there were so many people there.


We stayed at the Balloon Park for a couple of hours and then I went home and crashed for almost five hours.

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P-9: Crazy Giant Print

With our newest project, Rodney is admittedly trying to kill us, or break us, or maybe just make us think twice about being at Tamarind. We're upping the ante here.

First of all, this project is big. The paper size is 22"x30". The image size is 20"x28". Which means we only get a one inch paper border around our image. There is no room to punch the paper, so we have to use the T and Bar method of registration.

Not only is this project big in size, but it's also big in scope. We have to have three runs (three separate layers printed on top of each other). One of the layers is a giant blend (also called a rainbow roll), in which we blend multiple colors together on one massive roller.

Here I am struggling to use the roller in our long demo on Friday:



And here I am smiling only because Yuli forced me to:



The hardest part about the blend is keeping the colors consistent. If you don't place your roller down in the exact same spot every time, the colors will start to migrate and the blend will transform into something completely different.

Patrick proofed his blend onto several different papers. So pretty, yet so evil:



Besides the blend, the other layers have to be a texture layer, and a key image.

Rodney has been daring us to draw Unicorns, so I decided that I would draw Rodney riding a Unicorn for this project.

Here is my drawing. I was never really that good at drawing horses:



For my blend, I'm going to use a light pink, a hot pink, and a lavender in the background. These are the colors I'm using, but I think the blend will be primarily the lighter pink with the other colors pushed more towards the top of the image:



I'm not quite sure what I'm doing for my texture yet. I'm thinking some sort of airbrush highlights in a white or peach that goes over the unicorn and in the clouds.

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P-8: Collaboration II

Disclaimer: This project was actually finished a week or so ago. I've just been lazy. Sorry.

For our second collaborative project, we are working with punch registration and color inks. Up until now, we have been printing with only one image (run) in black ink. This time we are using two plates in two different colors printed on top of each other.

So we started with a flat... just a plain old solid rectangle.



To make the flat, we had to use a ruling pen with gum arabic to create perfect borders. Then we filled in the remaining rectangle with shellac and rolled it up in ink. We start with it in black, then switch to color when we're ready to print.

Next, we had our artist draw an image on a piece of mylar with toner (marketed as Litho Coal). The toner is a lot like what is in copy machines. You know, that powdery black stuff that can get stuck in your lungs and is really bad for you. We mixed a little bit up with some alcohol so that the artist could paint it on with a brush. Here is the image that I painted for Celina while it was still on the mylar:



Once the drawing is done on the mylar, you simply place it on the plate and run it through the press. This transfers the toner to the plate. Then you stick it in the oven and bake it for about 15-20 minutes. Etch it with 50/50 and you're ready to roll.

Patrick is my artist for this project. Here is his image on the plate:




Patrick picked out colors for me to mix. The flat is a creamy green and the toner image is a dark blue. Here is what it looked like when it was done:





When you start printing multiple colors and images on top of each other, it becomes incredibly important to have a good registration system.

For our purposes, registration can be defined as lining up two images so that the edges match up exactly. Good registration will also help you to print your image in the same spot on the page every time. If you want your image to be perfectly centered on the paper, you need a way to mark it so that you can lay it down precisely.

There are lots of methods of registration. So far this semester, we have been using the "T and Bar" Method. With this method you simply put pencil marks on the back of the paper that correspond to scratched in marks on the stone or plate. Skilled printers can get pretty good registration this way, but it becomes increasingly difficult to get exact registration with lots of colors.

With punch registration, we have a glorified hole punch (from Takach) that we use to punch holes in the plate and our paper. Then we have a little metal button or pin that we stick up through the hole and through our paper.



Punch registration is a great way to ensure you're getting your paper in the right place, but it can be tricky. It is very important to make sure that the image areas on all of your plates or stones are exactly the same size and shape... or it will never line up right. Even with pins.

Overall, Patrick and I had a fairly easy time with this project. The edges of my flat were pretty janky but I think I've got the hang of it now.

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Visitor(s)

Early this morning, Carrie caught a cab to the airport and left me here all alone. The winds from the north were blowing the balloons over the top of Tamarind and we went to the roof to watch them pass.





I was excited to see the balloons so close but also a little sad since Carrie wasn't there to enjoy them with me. We had a pretty good weekend but never made it out to the Balloon Fiesta to see the balloons up close. Click below for more on C's visit:

Thursday
Thursday morning I took the bus out to the airport Sunport to "pick up" Carrie. After waiting for her bags and the bus, we made it back to my house around 11am. Our first stop was Satellite Coffee (for Carrie), then my apartment (to drop off bags), then to Tamarind (to say Hi), and then to the Frontier (for lunch).

Despite its proximity to my apartment, Carrie hadn't been to the Frontier yet. We were joined for lunch by Patrick, Alex, Celina, Ana & Valpuri. I don't think C was quite as impressed with the Frontier as everyone else seems to be. But the meal was satisfying nonetheless.

After her long morning of travel, C was tired and took a little nap in the afternoon. I returned to Tamarind to work on things. Before dinner at the fast-food-Japanese place, a nice lady came by and delivered my new bike! I'd been looking for a bike on craigslist since I got to ABQ, but hadn't really found much of a need for one. With my frequent travels to Patrick's house and a desire to move outside my two block radius, it became more important for me to get some wheels. I decided that I wanted to get another trick bike, even though I don't know how to do any tricks (except ride with no hands and pop a little wheelie). The bike was filthy, and despite the fact that it supposedly had only be ridden "five times" by the woman's son, the right brake lever was broken off. After a good scrubbing and a little "mechanickin'" on the brakes, she was as good as new. Here I am looking good on my new ride:



Afterward, we hung out at Patrick's for a bit. We'd hoped to play Scrabble with Alex, but her mom made a last minute decision to come into town. Instead, we played Carcassonne, which is a fun strategic tile game too difficult to explain but incredibly easy to play. I highly recommend it.

Friday
I got to Tamarind around 9am while Carrie slept in a bit. We are starting to do blend rolls for our next big project (to be explained later). And Rodney wanted us each to take a turn at rolling out and printing a blend. Since we were all participating, this turned out to be one of those demos that takes all day. I had my turn just before lunch and I found it to be incredibly frustrating. Mostly because the roller was giant and I'm am short and the plate is big and my arms just don't reach that far. I whined a lot about it and eventually finished my turn.

Carrie had spent the latter part of the morning knitting at Satellite Coffee and she joined us for lunch at another coffee shop/cafe across the street. This time the group was us, Patrick, Ana, Celina, Valpuri, Alex and her mother.

Tamarind has an official tour once a month and I encouraged Carrie to get in on it. She was able to watch Four Stones for Kanemitsu and strolled around Tamarind with a group of strangers. (I still don't know where these random tour people come from.)

Patrick's parents arrived from Milwaukee in the afternoon and they joined our class (including Carrie and Alex's mom) as we went to look at some lithographs in the Print Study room on campus.

Carrie was so inspired by all the printmaking that she agreed to make a little print with me in the evening. I had some crappy plate scraps left over from another project and let Carrie draw on them.



Saturday
As I'd mentioned before, the balloon fiesta started this weekend and I just kind of assumed that we'd go at some point. Of course, I really didn't put that much thought into this excursion. I figured that somebody would be wanting to go out there, and hopefully that somebody would have a car. The balloon park is a good 20 minute drive north of campus. They do have several park and ride locations around town, but the closest one was nearly two miles away. To top it all off, most of the good stuff happens before 7am! That is a very very early long walk to the park and ride. No thank you.

Instead of dealing with this dilemma, we decided to spend our morning shopping in Nob Hill (about 1 mile down Central) and having a nice lunch at Scalo. Unfortunately, I was feeling pretty crappy that morning. I managed the walk to the restaurant, but as soon as I sat down I was miserable.

Here is Carrie with Central Avenue and the mountains in the background:



And here is me wishing I hadn't ruined the morning with my sickliness:



We tried looking in a few shops, and then stopped for super-yummy Gelato from Ecco-Gelato. (Thankfully they had a bathroom available for customer use.) I recovered at home for a bit and then we returned to the studio to work more on Carrie's print.

We printed the background plate first in a lovely shade of blue. Here I am doing a little deletion work on the plate:



Here is my little sponger in her borrowed Tamarind apron:



Here's Carrie taking a turn at operating the press:



Here I am rolling out the ink:



And here is the proud artist with the first run:



Later in the evening, after dinner at Saggio's, we went to the Copper Lounge with Patrick and his parents. Mick and Sharon met up with us there and we eventually ended up at Valpuri's house (minus Patrick's parents). The highlight of my evening was buying and eating a bag of Pork Rinds. Such a guilty pleasure.

Sunday
We threw around the idea of walking down to the Park and Ride Sunday morning but it just didn't happen. Making the situation even more complicated was the fact that I had been given two free tickets to the balloon fiesta (a $12 value). The Park and Ride fare included fiesta admission. You couldn't just get the ride by itself. I just couldn't bring myself to fork over money for admission when I already had tickets. Carrie claimed not to care, so that was that.

Instead, we spent the morning at the apartment and then returned to the studio to finish Carrie's print. I think Carrie was a little disappointed with the end result. It didn't help that I was in a hurry and was being completely unprofessional. I didn't know C would take the project so seriously. But as she later said, after you spend three days on something, you want it to look good.

Here I am in my green and gold, mixing up a little red:



And here are a few variations on the finished print:



After printing we went for a walk on the UNM campus and hung out at the "Duck Pond". At 5pm, Patrick picked us up to go to Howie's for the Packers-Bears game. Patrick's parents were all decked out in their Packer finest and we had an enjoyable time at Howie's, even though the Packers lost. (Murrr.) Since it was a nationally televised Sunday night game and the balloon fiesta was going on, it wasn't as crowded as normal. But there were still quite a few Packer fans, including some visiting from Green Bay for the balloons.

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