Six Things that Surprise Artists When They Stay in the Gallinero – I/II
Maureen Booth, Granada, July 18, 2011–I’ve had artists coming to stay in my “Gallinero” artists’ residence and work with me in my printmaking studio for a year and a half now. I’ve welcomed all sorts of people: working artists, advanced beginners, people between the ages of 15 and 82, a Canadian return-to-art person, a couple of delightful veteran artists and art educators from Colorado, a Hungarian sculptor, an Australian painter… All of them have taught me something, and I’d like to think the experience was mutual. And there’s one thing they all agree upon: Printmaking here in Granada and staying in the Gallinero is a unique creative experience. That compels me to try to figure out what makes it so. I’ve made a list of possible factors: Read more…
See Two New Videos in My Printmaking Master Classes Collection
I’ve just added two new videos to my Printmaking Master Classes collection of printmaking tutorials for download.
Recorded in my studio in Granada, they are:
- Traditional Printmaking 2–This is the follow up to Traditional Printmaking 1, and discusses aquatint, sugar lift and marbling techniques.
- Printmaking Tips–This is a collection of shortcuts, safety measures, ways of economizing and working more efficiently. Taken together they should make your studio experience more pleasant and productive.
You can find previews and order links for these new videos here on the Printmaking Master Classes site.
Take a Look at This One-Minute Video from the Granada Tourist Bureau
Curious about what Granada and its province has to offer visitors? Here’s a quick roundup:
Six Things that Surprise Artists When They Stay in the Gallinero – II/II
4. The Focus—When is the last time you’ve had two or three weeks with nothing to think about, nothing to spend your time on but art? It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? But that’s what happens to people when they arrive in Granada for one of my printmaking workshops. This is especially true of the artists who come to do one-on-one collaborative work with me. Their existence here is almost monastic.
They divide their time between the creative cloister of the Gallinero and my studio. We usually work together for five hours each morning. Then, after lunch, they make their own hours, either working in the studio or sketching glimpses of the village and the surroundings. Some of them stay in the studio past midnight. Read more…
Maureen Booth Talks About Her New Printmaking Tutorial Videos
Maureen Booth is the master printmaker who has published what some fine-art-printmaking insiders consider to be the finest printmaking tutorials on the Web. She affirms, “Making videos is like making prints. The process is essentially the same. You just try to do it better every time.”
Anglo-Spanish master printmaker, Maureen Booth
Maureen in her Granada printmaking studio.Q/ How did you happen to embark on this printmaking-learning-videos project, Maureen? Did you have sponsorship or institutional backing of some sort?
A/ Something of that sort would have been nice, but instead of growing old waiting for it to happen, video producer, Juan Carlos Romera, and I planned and executed the whole thing ourselves, and my husband, Mike, is doing the Internet promotion. The Printmaking Master Classes project was actually Juan Carlos’s idea. He’s been fascinated with etching ever since we shot some scenes of his short film, “Bive,” in my studio seven or eight years ago. That was my first experience in front of a camera. I played an English printmaker who falls in love with a Spanish fisherman.
What prompted you both to devote the time and effort—all summer on the first five videos—to this project? What were your objectives? And what made you think it would work as a business? Read more…
Chicago Girlz Set New Production Benchmarks for Work in Maureen’s Studio
The Chicago Girlz (our affectionate nickname), an extraordinary trio of printmakers made up of Deborah Lader, founder and director of The Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, her mother Carol Lader and Carol’s sister (Deborah’s aunt) Janet Imerman, have set new benchmarks for printmaking zeal in my studio. These remarkable young people stepped off the Chicago-Granada flight (Janet was actually coming straight through from Los Angeles) at midday last Monday, put down their bags in the Gallinero, rested for a whole hour and then proceeded to my studio to begin making prints. And that was the pace they maintained for the rest of the week, till we put them on the bus to Madrid this morning. I never saw such printmaking joy and fervor. Most nights they were in the studio until past midnight. It was a challenge to keep up with them.
They had never done solar-plate prints before, and were anxious to immerse themselves in the techniques and get a grip on them once and for all. This was particularly true for Deborah, who wanted to determine whether solar plate was something she should be offering in her Chicago Printmakers Collaborative open studio at home. She concluded that it was. Read more…
Brenda Eubank-Ahrens and Her International School of Bremen Art Students Spend Three Intensive Days Working in The Gallinero and Maureen’s Studio
Brenda visited Maureen’s Pomegranate Editions a year ago (thanks to their mutual friend, Alice Doeldissen) and when the tour was over Brenda asked Maureen if she could create a workshop the following summer for a dozen or so of her 17-year-old art students from the International School of Bremen. The answer was yes, and the the group has just spent three intensive days working with Maureen in her studio and El Gallinero learning solar-plate etching techniques. The artistic level of these 17 year olds was remarkably high, and that coupled with their enthusiasm made for some interesting results (see photo presentation below).
Their school has recently joined the prestigious International Baccalaureate program, and this was a select international group of students. Many of them were from Bremen and other parts of Germany, but other countries were represented, as well: the U.S.A., Mexico, Poland… As everyone knows, printmaking makes one hungry, so when the morning’s work was finished all the students, along with their two monitors, Brenda and Frankie, sat down to a hearty Spanish-style lunch at the picnic table on Maureen’s terrace.
Here is a selection of photographs which will give you an idea of what their visit was like:
Maureen Featured in California Society of Printmakers Newsletter
Barbara Milman, an ex president of the California Society of Printmakers was here recently making solarplate prints with Maureen in the studio. When she got back home she published this report on the society’s newsletter. Thank you Barbara, for the plug! Here’s the link: http://caprintmakers.wordpress.com/
Barbara Milman Leaves Today
Granada, April 29, 2011–It’s 9:00 a.m. and we’ve just finished signing the last of her prints. She and I are both delighted with what she’s achieved over the past week. Barbara, a longtime resident of the San Francisco area–and ex-president of the California Society of Printmakers–had never done any solar-plate printmaking before, but it didn’t take her long to see the light.
An exceptionally focused artist–“I came here to make prints, not to do tourism.”–Barbara dedicated the first couple of days to mastering the basics. Then on the third day she produced an exceptionally lovely solar print, then another, then a whole series of them.
We’re going to miss her as, besides being a fine artist, she’s good people with interesting ideas and charming conversation. I’m including here an album of photographs which Mike made during Barbara’s stay in the Gallinero.
Small World, Milanese Connection, First Writer
Our old friend, Barbara Mason (from the Atelier Meridian in Portland, Oregon), was kind enough last summer to recommend my etching workshop to a friend called Mary Marjerrison. Mary showed up a couple of weeks ago with her friend, the author, Nancy Tomasetti, the Gallinero’s first writer. Did they come from Oregon? No, they came from Milan, Italy, where they both live. It’s a small world. Hence the silly title of this post.
Mary, who works in administration at an international school in Milan was able to rob a week for printmaking thanks to the very civilized Italian tradition of the “Settimana bianca,” a week off school in March. Perhaps it’s because she was previously an art teacher, or because of her high energy level (How many grandmothers do you know who run marathons?), but Mary got straight down to work, preparing her solar-print acetates in the Gallinero in the evenings and showing up each morning prepared to burn the images onto plates.
Perhaps her efficiency in the studio also had to do with the fact that she didn’t have a lot of experience with solar plates and was eager to learn. It’s often more difficult to work with people who already know a lot about the subject. Maybe that’s why the Chinese say, “Before you can fill a glass it must be empty.” I think she made more successful prints in one week with me than most artists make in two. Even so, Mary insists that she didn’t have enough time and that she needs to come back and do some more work as soon as possible. That’s excellent news.
While Mary and Maureen were in the studio all morning every
morning, Nancy stayed ensconced in the Gallinero with 
her feet up by the fire and her laptop on–you guessed it–her lap. The first thing they did when they arrived was to reorganize the furniture in the kitchen, relegating the little Spanish-style kitchen table with the brasero (brazier) under it to a rear corner, dragging the old coffee table out of the pantry and swiveling the sofa around so it faced the wood stove. (It worked well; we left it that way.)
Nancy is from New York but studied in Wisconsin. She still has a house on the shores of Lake Michigan, and goes back there ever summer to spend time with old friends and family.
Besides working on her latest short story, Nancy, who had never visited the Alhambra, took a morning off work to see Granada’s–and one of Europe’s–prime tourist attractions, and one of the few which actually lives up to its advanced billing.
In all, I couldn’t have hoped for a more rewarding visit from these two Milanese-American artists. I hope they do make it back sometime.
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"El Gallinero"--An Artists' & Writers' Refuge in Granada 