Continuing the profiling of my art postcards…here are some recent examples of on various themes. These cards are hand-printed, created from a combination of drawing and printmaking in low print run editions. Once I finished a session it meant the end of that particular batch. I would not repeat the design or reprint it. Cards in an edition are all original prints…similar in design but classified as mono prints as there are no exact duplicates. They fall within the standard postcard size dimensions of 10cm x 15cm or a near approximate. More information about this project can be found on the four previous POSTCARD posts…see the links below at the bottom of this post.
Continuing the profiling of my art postcards here are some early ones from the years 2007-2009 on the theme of The Seasons. These cards were hand-printed, created from a combination of drawing and printmaking in low print run editions. Once I finished a session it was the end of that particular batch and I would discontinue using the design. Cards in an edition are all original prints, named monoprints, i.e. the cards look similar in design and together form a series with no exact duplicates, but variations…thus the label of monoprints. The cards fall within the standard postcard size dimensions of 10cm x 15cm. The horizontal band of vertical orange print marks visible on some cards come courtesy of Australia Post…my cards were stamped on the surface with a code as part of the postal process. Consequently I began to post my cards in an envelope. More information about this project is contained on the three previous POSTCARD posts (see the links below).
This post continues the profiling of production of my hand-made art postcards in limited editions… featuring more examples from the Abstract series…and as previously stated each postcard is an original…a monotype, similar in design but not an exact duplicate of any other card.
Cards in an edition are all original prints…similar in design but with no exact duplicates…as can be seen in the following four examples from the Abstract No-14 series. These cards were all made in the same batch…during the same printmaking session…however, variations in colour, texture and positioning of compositional elements can be detected.
This post profiles another artistic medium that I have been printmaking in recent years. This is the design of limited edition art postcards. These are some of my earliest designs. More will be added in future posts. I hand-printed these postcards that were created from a combination of drawing and printmaking. I would make random, numbered editions of say 8, 19 or 33. A print run greater than 50 was rare. The total would be determined by the amount of blank cards, ink and time available for finishing. Once I completed a session it meant the end of that particular batch as I would not repeat the design. Cards in an edition are all original prints. These are called monoprints, so-called by being similar in design but with no exact duplicates in the batch.
The following three postcards show variations produced in the same edition. (1) the overlaid pink patch is in a different position on each card…and its shape and strength of colour vary. (2) the dragon stamp(the small curvy line) is not in the exact same position. It is on two cards but not the third. Its legs seem absent in two of the impressions. (3) the large black and yellow mass varies in colour and texture from card to card. (4) the Post Office franking machine marking is at the top, bottom or missing(only visible on reverse side of card). (5) my MH signature seal, whilst generally in the same position, is actually upside down on two of the cards…an bloody unbelievable, creative oversight! I’m sorry!
The drinking of beer, usually a bottle of stout, marked the end of an edition and celebration of completion. This was often late in the afternoon as I never seemed to print in the mornings or evenings. After a couple of years I supplemented this hand-made approach with digital printing, making copies from the scanned original. But then, lacking satisfaction…and missing the additional ink staining on my jeans, I abandoned that and returned to the hand-made printmaking process. Consequently, both my level of satisfaction and the print marks on my jeans improved, Michael.
UPDATE OCTOBER 12, 2015: A selection of these art postcards have been displayed in exhibitions. The first in 2007 titled Abstract Nos. 1-11 at the DAB LAB Gallery, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building of the University of Technology, Sydney.
Pop-Up Postcard Exhibition by Dr. Michael Hill: Abstract Nos.1-11, DAB LAB Gallery, UTS, 2007.
Detail: Pop-Up Postcard Exhibition by Dr. Michael Hill: Abstract Nos.1-11, DAB LAB Gallery, UTS, 2007.
Exhibition flyer designed by Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics.
Reverse of ABSTRACT exhibition flyer designed by Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics.
UPDATE NOVEMBER 6, 2015: At Hondarake Full of Books in 2012…the launch of my comic Blotting Paper was accompanied by a mini exhibition of my art postcards…33 in all from 32 different designs.
An exhibition of handmade art postcards…accompanying the launch of my artist book/comic Blotting Paper at Hondarake Bookshop, February 2012 (Photo by Louise Graber).
Fukushima Kids 2013 Auction, Japan: 10 of my art postcards…each print a monoprint and thus unique…were contributed to this cause and event. The reverse side was signed and dated with my artist’s stamp. These postcards were made on machine made cardboard following the Japanese sosaku hanga method of printmaking.
This post documents a recent walking tour of Berlin’s Staadt Mittee area…with friend, local resident and interpreter Mailef as my guide. The plan was to see the graffiti and traces of an artists’ commune (kunsthaus). I also wanted to visit Renate comics shop and bibliothek which has been located there since the early 1990s. I thought it would be good to purchase some German kunst comicbuchs (art comics) there!
Mailef escorted me to the Kunsthaus (arthouse) Tacheles building on Oranienburger Strasse…a site that was previously part of East Berlin when the wall was up. The Tacheles (translation “let’s talk business”) building had, over a century, successively housed…an elegant shopping arcade, then Nazi offices and squatter artists. The building was damaged in World War 2 then repaired by the GDR…vacated in 1989 then occupied as an international artist squat in the 1990s. The artists were eventually displaced/evicted by representatives of the investors in 2012.
Art comics (kunst comicbuchs) by the hundreds were available at Renate Comics. Many of them were signed and marked as limited editions. These varied in size from A6 minicomics to the larger A3 format. Art postcards (kunst postkartes) have become an additional creative outlet for comics creators. I enjoy making art postcards myself…and there was a range of German stock in a rotating rack on the pavement outside the shop.
Art minicomicbuch purchase from the shop- Pure Sultana by Franziska Schaum.
I took another walking tour of Mitte in Berlin with friend, former student, now animator, illustrator and printmaker, Michelle Park. She showed me a study of terror(see photos below). It was a busy morning for walking tours in Berlin. Starting out in Bezirk Kreuzburg…we passed the Deutsches Currywurst Museum in Schützenstraße,…Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Friedrichstraße, then walked along Niederkirchnerstraße to the old Gestapo and SS Headquarters site.
The Gestapo Headquarters building had taken a direct hit from English bombing during World War II. It was demolished after the war. It is now an open-air museum Topography Des Terrors (Topography of Terror). Some rubble remains. There is a section of the Berlin Wall(without the barbed wire) and a new building with an exhibition and information. The exhibition was titled Errfast, Verfolgt, Vernichtet (Registered, Persecuted, Annihilated). It was both grim and candid about the horror that had taken place there.
Next door at Martin Gropius Bau museum was the Hans Richter exhibition…Begegnungen, Von Dada Bis Heute (Encounters: From Dada to the Present Day).It was part of the Berlin Festival. Also present wasthe David Bowie exhibition from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s Evidence. What a line-up! This building had also suffered from the bombing alyjough not as much as the Gestapo site. It has been restored but still displays its scarification from shrapnel and bullets.
With both of us interested in animation and printmaking I wanted to show Michelle this wonderful exhibition of the artistic career of Hans Richter. He had been born in Berlin in 1888 and was a key figure in 20th Century art and animation. Three sides of Martin Gropius Bau had been allocated so a lot of walking was required. There were his woodcuts and paintings and his contributions to Dada. These included Dada magazine and his own zine G -Material zur elementarun Gestaltung (Material for elementary design). There were also his experiments with painted scrolls. These had led him to the discovery of displaying images in motion through animation. On screen were his abstract animations and live-action films including Dreams That Money Can Buy. There were also some home movies, plus documentation of his film teaching work in New York. Added to this were works by colleagues Max Ernst, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, George Grosz, Francis Picabia, Viking Eggeling, Alexander Calder and Kurt Schwitters. Richter was a well connected man.
Hans Richter exhibition pamphlet at Martin Gropius Bau.
DADA: art and anti-art by Hans Richter.
With a life’s work on display there was much inter-connected visual material in the exhibition…we found ourselves walking back and forth. We could have spent 4 or 5 hours watching the films, videos and documentaries alone. It was an exhibition that called for fresh legs and more than one visit. Excellent art, impressive show, Michael.
Blauer Mann, 1917, by Hans Richter
Visionary self-portrait by Hans Richter.
Stalingrad (Sieg im Osten) (Victory in the East), scroll painting by Hans Richter.
Good news for me! The first issue of my comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics is to be published…in a signed, limited edition. Scheduled for 11 February 2012 at HONDARAKE Full of Books in Sydney (details in the poster below). The comic will be launched by my friend and colleague Gene Kannenberg, Jr. via a Skype link from the U.S.A. Kannenberg, a noted comics historian, is the director of ComicsResearch.org. He is former Chair of the International Comic Arts Festival…and the Comic Art & Comics Area of the Popular Culture Association…and he has written widely on comics art including the book “500 Essential Graphic Novels.”
Poster designed by Louise Graber incorporating original print by Dr. Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics.
The launch will be accompanied by an exhibition of 33 of my handmade art postcards. These have been produced following the sosaku hanga ‘creative print’ style. This method originated in a movement that emerged just over a century ago in Tokyo. Creative prints became the voice of a group of artists who went under the name Pan. They met for sake parties by the Sumida River. It was the centre of the Floating World of old Edo and site of the classic Ukiyo-e print movement. James Michener wrote: “…in contrast to the classical system in which the artist merely designed the print, leaving the carving of the blocks to one technician and the printing to another, the newer print artists preached that the artist himself must do the designing, carving and printing. A new term was devised to describe such a print-sosaku hanga, meaning “creative print.” ” (Michener, 1968: The Modern Japanese Print p.11). I follow this method in my printmaking.
Above is a collage of 4 separate pen and ink/felt-tipped pen drawings. These separate drawings have been collaged together: (1) Sydney Harbour Bridge. (2) rear view of Doctor Comics walking (3) hand holding bag (4) hand inserting key in door. These drawings will be included in the first issue of the comic. The drawings are from different pages in the comic but have been brought together in this collage…and have been overlaid in the same graphic space. This grouping forms a visual sign or motif for promotion of the comic. I would love to read feedback on this and my other posts.
Doctor Comics 