etching talk - doug osa

This must be the street. There are cars parked up and down the curb closest to the house where the etcher will speak.

New members who have recently joined and those I have met on previous occasions mill through the house.

The studio tour is down a short flight of steps, a few steps past the garage, a door to the right and voila, we gather to view Osa's recent etching,

It is these super fine lines - all of them. Why would it take one hundred hours to draw them? Simply - because they are not drawn on the metal plate. An wet acid bath eats grooves down into the copper plate. The final result comes from subsequent times in the acid bath. Doug Osa refers to the process as "controlled." Unlike the immediacy of drawing with a pencil on paper, the etched impression has stages of treatment before inking the plate and pulling a proof from the press.

(ABOVE) Spread out for comparison, six preliminary impressions display the corrections and types of line-work that were made as the whole image progressed. OMG!! Note the changes on the folds of the tablecloth.

Sunflower in a basket.

Two minutes.

Depth test.

Our host Doug Osa is talking about MEZZOTINT. The print maker wants the inked image to start out jet black. This is achieved after hand-rocking a metal tool across a copperplate for several hours. Thereafter the artist scrapes areas of the plate where he wants his design to be lightened. A burnishing tool with oil on the copperplate helps to polish an area, to make the inked print as white as the artist desires. He refers to modern day mezzotint artist Carol Wax, as her book on the subject is exchanging hands. Judith holds the book up for me to see.

small mezzotint plate in his hand.

Understanding the process is an eye opener.

Interview with Doug in 2014 HERE

Studio tour took place March 4th, 2017

Submitted by Karl Marxhausen

ruthie osa - print salon share

     When 22 KC print society members got together to share a print that meant something to each of us, STORIES opened up, and it got exciting in the Spencer Room of the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Here is Ruthie:

"Doug started chronicling the West Bottoms. Doug is a Kansas City native. As a kid, wanted to be a train engineer, so his dad was always taking him to the West Bottoms on Saturday." Ruthie Osa

S: These surely had to be based of pictures, right?

R: "No, He actually went down to draw these."

S: "He drew these? He actually sat down there and were drawing these? I'm surprised he is alive today. It's rough down there."

R: "Yeah, it is!! But, he is a big guy."

P: "This (print) is 1991."

S: "It was probably rougher then." (laughter)

Osa introduces etching by her husband, Kansas artist, Doug Osa.  One minute video. 

Criticism of compliment? Too much like Rembrandt.
 One minute long.

J: "I have one of Doug's works. And Doug shared with me, it takes between 200 to 250 hours, just to do the plate!! Just amazing."

Ruthie Osa is a member of the Nelson Atkins Print Society.
Osa interview

Print Salon Share took place on March 22, 2014.  

Photos and video by Karl Marxhausen

doug osa - kc printmaker

As a 30 year old student, fresh out of grad school and working a day shift as a composition tech at Custom Color in Kansas City, Doug Osa was looking for a way to continue exercising his excitement in etching. Osa shares what he did. One minute.

I can't see, having worked as an artist, especially AFTER HAVING FOUND MY WAY INTO ETCHING, to just have experimented with it, and put it aside and not doing anything with it after that. Just, IT WAS A BIG ENOUGH DEAL that when I got out of school, and I was trying to figure out HOW I WOULD KEEP ON WORKING IN PRINTMAKING AND ETCHING. The thing that I ended up doing was taking the biggest part of the summer, in evenings after I got off work, and I actually went out to a friend of my dad's who owned a machine shop and HE HELPED ME BUILD my first, MY ONLY PRINTING PRESS, WHICH I STILL USE. All these prints I've done have been pulled off of a handmade press that I built that summer. IT WAS THE ONLY WAY it was going to happen. This was long before you find stuff on the Internet. I didn't know how to go about looking for used print presses or anything.      Doug Osa

 

Close details of etched lines from one copper plate.
Double click on images to enlarge.

 

     Painting was his core classwork and his first love in grad school. He also took an elective class in intaglio, at the University of Kansas, under John Talleur, where he learned the basics of etching. Osa said, there was a whole different approach at developing an image when one etched. Instead of mixing pigments in paint, a value was created with layers and layers and layers of lines, almost a science of lines. Instead of wielding big brushes, he used a very fine needle. Osa said, that later on, etching would give him a mental break from a painting he was working on. He found himself recharged, given a reprieve from painting concerns. He often worked impulses from painting into an etching and from etching into a painting. But that, in both mediums, he had a drive to involve the senses when he worked outdoors en plein air. He used every means to suggest the details, even down to the insects at his feet. Because the richness of that experience called for it!!

A passion to describe all of it outdoors. Two minutes.

A lot of what I was trying to accomplish in prints and in painting was capturing the light that was literally at my feet, while I was out working outdoors. Right down to, painting insects in, not painting the insects themselves, but painted images of painted insects in paintings, and, smaller and smaller details. If I could see it, I tried to paint it, or tried to put it into a print. And that is why these, you know, foregrounds, in both the paintings and the prints from that era are just CROWDED WITH ALL KINDS OF DETAIL. I was simply TRYING TO GET EVERYTHING that, added up to WHAT IT WAS TO BE standing out in someone's field, on a particular morning, a particular day, and the weather was, something was happening about the weather. And it was THIS MOMENT IN TIME, where everything around me just seemed to be, uh, just as important as the rest of the area!!   Sometimes I look at it and think maybe I, it was to a fault that I tried to put so much detail in to it, but, in looking back I don't think I could have done it any other way. IT JUST SEEMED IT HAD TO BE THERE OR THE WORK WASN'T FINISHED!!      Doug Osa

details of insects in the foreground

inked impression from the copperplate etching 

Double click on images to enlarge. 

Olmstead's Farm by Doug Osa, etching.
One minute view of hedge rows.
More on Olmstead's Farm, click HERE.

Doug Osa enjoys the manual rigor of etching. The real creating takes place on the copper plate itself. It is physical. To use some metaphors, it is like dragging your equipment along your property, and digging post holes for a fence. What begins with penciled ideas is tilled into the metal. Then the scenery is overhauled - shoveled - broken down - scraped - and managed. In due time, the transformation, pulled up on an inked proof pleases his eye.

Action on the plate.Three minutes.   

Olmstead's Farm inked impression and copperplate, respectively.

Three minutes.

  

County Line Sunset,  2 3/4" x 3 1/4"  Click on image ABOVE. Entirely dry point. This is an intaglio process in which the lines are produced by drawing on the plate with a sharpened point which leaves a groove in the plate and a raised burr alongside the groove. You could think of it as being similar to a plowed furrow in a field.  By holding a little extra ink, the burr produces the characteristic soft edged lines when printed. The amount of burr used in the image can be controlled by pressure on the drawing point, the angle that the point is held at during drawing, scraping away unwanted burr after the lines are drawn, and during the wiping process.  The crisp lines in County Line Sunset have had the burr entirely removed leaving a line similar to an etched line.  The softer areas in the print have been produced by the burr.

The breakthroughs in an individual's career or sensibilities happen by accident, just by pushing the envelope, outside the comfort zone, trying something that you thought, 'well I wonder how that would work?' but you've never really done it. Either jump in and give it a shot or you never do.    Doug Osa   

A painter considers mezzotint. Three minutes.

I liked the idea of, in this case it's, in my mind, it's taking a step closer to painting, than just etching. Instead of working with lines and creating edges and shapes with lines, it was more like taking this value that was black, but then modifying it almost like adding in white paint to get lighter greys, and then, finally, like pure white to get whitening in the print.  So, it was a little closer process to painting, you know making an image strictly in values.     Doug Osa 

Facade detail

Doug Osa (DO) and Karl Marxhausen (KM) discuss the creation of Facade. Three minutes.
DO: Facade, the process that I used in making this image is called mezzotint. The plate begins clean, polished, and without any marks at all on it. A mezzotint rocker, which is kind of a curved chisel-like thing, that has, it's lined with teeth along the edge, is rocked over the plate. It's kind of walked back and forth. LAYERS AND LAYERS. You basically do a pattern of lines that you rock with this thing. And you move the plate, and kind of walk that rocker, LAYING DOWN ROWS OF THESE LINES 
KM: Sort of like tire tracks?
DO: Around the clock. So, you basically rock THE ENTIRE PLATE through twelve different directions. And it is a real tedious, long process. But the whole point is to arrive at a plate, that if you were to print it at that point you would get a jet black, solid image, just a black rectangle. (simulated image, NEXT)

DO:  And then, the image is arrived at by scraping and burnishing that burr. The teeth in that rocker punches little dots down into the plate, and each one of those dots has a little chip or a burr of copper pushed up beside it. And, uh, uh, that's what holds the ink. And to get rid of that you scrape and burnish. So, you can do a very small amount and get something like a real dark grey. Or you can scrape and burnish it back to a polished plate, in which case you get a totally white area within the image. And that's how this was done.

KM: So, like the door area (in the Facade detail, NEXT)

DO: This area (points to white door area, ABOVE) right here would have been nearly scraped and polished back to a shiny plate. And all these others (in shadows left of the door and at bottom of the steps) like down here there was just a very small amount of scraping and burnishing. You know, the shadow area up through the doorway, maybe nothing at all was done in there. And then you can look and see that there are some etched lines, which I also added in as I got the values put down where I wanted them. Then I added some etched lines, just to help clarify some of the architectural detail, and stuff like that. But basically this is entirely a mezzo tint print.   Facade,  full image BELOW, 6 3/4" x 3 3/4", Double click on image to enlarge.

In each medium 
the main thing  
is to find out
for yourself.
      TRY   

The time is better the EVER to try it your self. One minute.

Osa is member of the Nelson Atkins Print Society. 

He was one of 20 vendors at the Fine Print and Paper Kansas City Expo, April 19 and 20, 2013. The exhibit was in the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center in the Crossroads District.

Follow Doug on Facebook, click https://www.facebook.com/doug.osa

(Photo of County Line Sunset provided by artist, Olmstead's Farm courtesy of the Spencer Museum of Art, http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/exhibitions/farm/osa.shtml, and Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/doug.osa,  accessed Jan 7, 2014)

Interview took place June 9, 2013
Submitted by Karl Marxhausen

walk up and connect - kc expo

 



     I met the young man at the La Cucaracha booth who will be teaching the monotype class at the KCAI in June. Because I met him, I probably will take the class.     paula winchester

    There was the envelope I bought for my wife that had tiny sculpted faces made of paper with seeds inside that you could plant. My wife loves sculpture. She will have surprised looks in her elementary art classes that she teaches her in Carrollton.     karl marxhausen 

I enjoyed talking with the guy behind the print society table who has a "have printing press will travel" business. He goes around the country printing on site for various events.    paul sokoloff 

 "A rising tide raises all ships."     Mark Stevenson

 Since I sat at the front table I know that there had been 116 people to enter the doors. I asked those, while I was sitting there, how they had heard about the event. Most had a friend in the event. 3 young adults were from Emporia State. They were studying to be engravers. I asked what they were going to do with that training when they graduated. I liked that the event had some things for sell from $1 to $1400 (Laura Berman had prints for 300$ to 1400$).     paula winchester

Nelson - Atkins Print Society - Print collectors Panel Discussion April 20, 2013  

mark stevenson on the importance of archival materials

   There was a fellow who was into book binding. Who sought out Reader Digest books and refashioned new book covers from them. Our chit chat segued into another fellow from Kansas City's history who got caught up with that hands on process, the book arts, Alfred Fowler. I enjoyed Chuck Harper's insights.    karl marxhausen

Five minute walk through EXPO.

Hi Karl, I saw this; thank you very much.

Great to see you this weekend.

justin rogers

     I left my card with the group Two Tone Press for I would love to take a class at their place near Costco. I purchased one of their postcards with a Horny Toad on front and mailed it to my son in Portland. I also became aware that I really don't know who the people are in the Print Society.    paula winchester 

I will have a solo exhibition at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center next spring. The show opens First Friday, May 2 and runs through June 28, 2014. Exhibition opportunities formed for me directly from my participation in the KC Fine Print and Paper Expo. This is when I was able to connect with the curators at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center. That was such a great event!     laura berman

Doug Osa

 Catherine Vesce

Laura Berman

Fine Prints & Paper KC Expo 2013

Dates and Times:   April 19, 2013 - 4 pm to 8 pm, April 20, 2013 - 10 am to 4 pm - Leedy-Voulkos Arts Center 2012 Baltimore Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri 64108
Attractions:   Over 20 fine print and paper artists and art organizations from Kansas City.- Special Events:  Friday, April 19th, 5:00pm Paper Making Demonstration with Kelsey Elise Pike - 5:00pm Intaglio Printmaking Demonstration with Art McSweeney - 7:00pm The Archeology of the Sheet: Looking at Fine Paper, lecture by Mark Stevenson including antique and vintage papers



Saturday, April 20th, 11:00am - Relief Printmaking Demonstration with the Print Factory - 1:00pm - Calligraphy Demonstration with Calvert Guthrie - 1:30pm - Care of Art on Paper, a lecture by Mark Stevenson - 2:00pm - Print Collectors Panel Discussion, presented by the Print Society of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

 The KC Expo concluded Saturday after one night
and one full day of interactions.