An Artist’s Journal

engraving block on pillow

Originally uploaded by John Steins

Here’s a nice shot of a boxwood block on my leather pillow. A most essential piece of equipment for the engraver.

Before the internet what did I do with all my time? Made art of course, along with finding ways to get the work out there where people can see it. Today creative people have an ‘Alice in Wonderland looking glass’ on their desktops through which they can reach out to the whole world and show their wares.

The flip side of participation in this ‘global bazaar’ is the effort required to not only present yourself in an effective way but get noticed among all the other seductive distractions. It is a challenge to get noticed but it’s been fun and rewarding.
I’ve embarked on retooling my online catalogue where I hope to eventually list everything I have available. Very time consuming work since I am essentially building up a searchable database of all my artwork. If you feel inclined please take a look http://johnsteins.com/osc/ It’s nowhere near being completed but is a functioning e-commerce site.

Critiques and suggestions are welcome.

A couple of weeks ago I opened a show of around 18 photographic portraits at Bombay Peggy’s Brothel & Pub. They’re all large format and nicely framed in a plain maple molding. Been getting pretty good feedback from visitors and pub patrons, guess the more you drink the better everything looks.

I drew from a collection of photos taken over the last ten years or so. A Mamiya twin lens reflex medium format camera was used although some were taken with my Sigma SLR SD10 like the one of my dad shown here.

I will post the whole show likely on Flickr at some point.

Bob knew the Yukon like the back of his hand, he could hike over a mountain range at the drop of a hat the way most of us trek over to the local convenience store for a bag of chips.

One day he disappeared for weeks without a trace. We all got worried about this prolonged absence despite our faith in his abilities as a great outdoors-man and naturalist. As soon as the the police where asked to mobilize their tracking dogs, Bob came thrashing through a thicket of brush.

Asked to explain his two week disappearance he sheepishly confessed to being “sucked into the green” while sitting on the john with the outhouse door wide open facing the leafy green jungle that he loved to explore.

More info about this print here.

MEDIUM: woodcut
EDITION: 58
IMAGE SIZE: 20 X 20 inches
PAPER SIZE: 22 x 28 inches
PAPER: Japanese Goyu
DATE: 2008
SIGNED & DATED: lower right in pencil

Amy Winehouse, a very talented singer/songwriter and a bit of a train wreck; the price of throwing yourself into the world you want to capture in your art.

“Go big or go home”, is what I hear her saying to me.

So I grabbed a chunk of old weather beaten plywood and committed to make a large format expressionist woodcut in black and white.

To buy click here

My father, Ilgvars Steins has complete mastery over pen and ink techniques as shown above in an image I think is called ‘Tree Hugger’ (12.5″ x 14″)

He also has a pretty wild imagination. There’s so much to choose from but I picked this recent one (below) titled ‘Listening Trumpet’ (12.5″ x 14″). He often combines gouache, water colour and pen & ink on beautifully textured watercolour paper.

He’s going to be moving to Dawson in the spring so it’ll be exciting to see what he comes up with while in the Yukon.

Here’s a short clip showing how I make a wood engraving. Notice how I push the block into the graver by pivoting it on the engraver’s pillow.

Here’s my offering for the Box 40 show which opens on the 17th of May at the YAAW gallery in Whitehorse. All members were given a blank box to decorate in some way for the exhibition which will also serve as a fund raiser for ceramic artist Patrick Royle who is in the hospital right now recovering from surgery.

I’m on my way to the show and look forward to the big opening on Thursday!

I had been making small format linocuts in a loose, expressionistic style and now I have reverted to a more premeditated approach where the linoblock has passages that resemble those found in a wood engraving although more coarse.

I tend to like the matrix better than the print. I never do cancellation prints where I have to deface the block. Can’t do it.

This is for all the bug lovers out there. The third image for my DCAS member’s show which opens this Thursday at the Odd Gallery in beautiful downtown Dawson City!

This image measures approximately 14 x 19 inches printed on treated heavy etching paper with an Epson Pro 4800. Edition size is 57.