Mike Lyon's Moku Hanga

"Annette" 70 x 45 inch watercolor with pen and ink drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:42:00 +0000

I don't know that I so much completed this drawing today as simply called it 'done'. Either way, I'm moving on! "Annette" is my mother-in-law and she does NOT appreciate this portrait at all -- she thinks it makes her look too old and wrinkly (she's only eighty-one years old, after all) and just hates it! But _I_ love this image of her even though I had trouble with the drawing from beginning to end! I composed the image during two and a half weeks in December and began actually drawing and painting it January 2, 2008. I stopped work on it this morning after 592 hours of continuous drawing and 34 Sakura Jelly Roll .3mm ink pens. The Sakura pens are advertised to write to the last drop, but that last drop usually happens LONG before the ink runs out -- VERY annoying! Still searching for that 'ideal' writing instrument which leaves a permanent mark, very fine line, and writes reliably until the ink runs out. Not easy to find!

"Annette" next to "Crosby" on 2nd floor of my studio this morning

"Annette", Jan 27, 2008, 70 x 45 inches, watercolor with pen and ink drawing
on Arches 300lb. hot press watercolor paper

detail of "Annette" showing lines and colors

-- Mike

"Crosby" 84 x 45 inch pen and ink drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:38:00 +0000

"Crosby" okubi-e (big-head picture), 84 x 45 inch pen and ink drawing is complete. This one is by far the most complex and involved drawing I've attempted with almost twice the line density of any previous drawing and over 10 million lines of code required to guide the machine movement. About three weeks to resolve the image and produce the code and almost 400 hours of continuous drawing! I beefed up the darkest areas by re-drawing and called it complete.

Here's an image of the portrait:

"Crosby" Dec 2007, 84 x 45 inches, pen and ink drawing on Arches 300 lb. hot press watercolor paper

-- Mike

Crosby pen and ink drawing with watercolor 90 x 45 inches

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:19:00 +0000

Here's a 'revisit' to an approach I was very interested in a decade or more ago -- black line over color -- inspired by Hiroshige and other ukiyo-e artists (and the comic books I loved during my childhood)...

1996 monotypes with black ink over flat color areas
my wife, Linda and a self-portrait, each image about 16 x 11 inches

When my "Sarah" drawing was first exhibited at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, the founder's wife appreciated it and invited me to create a similar life-size portrait of her husband, Crosby, a giant of a man and huge patron of the arts. I designed the image to include three flat colors, pink, blue, and tan to be painted in watercolor and then overlaid with the squiggly cross-hatched line drawing I've been developing over the past several years. I mounted a pencil in the gizmo I invented to carry my ink-pens and drew the color area outlines, then painted them very loosely with watercolor washes, using frisket to mask the outlines. Then mounted pen(s) and drew the image as usual.

"Crosby" pen and ink with watercolor, 90 x 45 inches
(permanent collection, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art)

I think the color turned out to be very effective, in spite of nasty technical problems caused mainly by uneven dampening of the paper during painting. That caused some expansion in the large sheet of Arches 300 lb. hot press watercolor paper which didn't completely shrink upon drying and left a half dozen large wrinkles which have persisted into the finished piece. Later this morning I'll lay the paper down flat, dampen it carefully (my inks are all water borne and very resoluble, so I'll have to be careful not to ruin the drawing after several hundred hours of work, and then see whether I can press the paper back to flat with a hot iron.

original 'plan' for color areas with mock-up

preparing to paint using pencil outline guides

pink watercolor applied -- belt still needs to be painted

frisket mask painted around area to become blue

Another nasty technical problem was caused by the frisking FRISKET!! Wouldn't you imagine that a product designed to be used on watercolor paper for masking would be non-staining?!? I used a frisket recommended by my local Dick Blick -- their house brand, same stuff as Windsor Newton (which I've found also stains the paper) -- but it left a dull reddish-brown 'halo' wherever I applied it! UGH! Blick carries a WHITE frisket which I hope (next time) will be non-staining! Very disappointing!

blue painting completed, frisket removed

tan painting completed and ink drawing underway -- detail shoes

similar detail of shoes -- drawing completed

drawing about 80% complete -- son Scott, home for Thanksgiving, comes down to watch

-- Mike

"Linda" 75 x 45 inch acrylic painting on unprimed canvas

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:01:00 +0000

I've been working for a couple of weeks now on a couple of long-term fascinations of mine -- painting with a limited palette in a grid, and my wife's beautiful face ! I suppose this latest endeavor was inspired (in part) by the needlepoint stockings my wife and I are making for a niece and nephew. Linda designed the stockings, we painted them together, and in bed each night for the past (GAWD, seems like forEVER) several months, we work on our respective needle point stockings and she criticizes me for not following the 'rules' and I remind her that MINE is almost done now!

the needlepoint I've been working on (from Linda's happy design)

plan for "Linda" 75x45 inch painting in 8 colors

plan colors for "Linda"

I started making gridded paintings in 1992, first painting 'visually', as if from a still life, the colors of very simple bitmap images of my family. As I continued, I began to abstract the images into 'paint by numbers' monochromatic portraits in squares (each number representing a value). Later, I learned how to calculate an image using any palette of paint colors I liked -- usually white, black, cadmium red, alizarine crimson, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, cadmium yellow medium, and sometimes cadmium lemon or pale (the limited palette I'd used as a student at the Kansas City Art Institute under Wilbur Niewald).

Two older examples, my 1995 4x4 foot self portrait in eight colors painted in half-inch squares 'by the numbers', and 1993 "Nana Rita" 4x4 feet painted 'from life' while looking at a 40x40 pixel grid on the screen of my computer for weeks on end:

"Linda" painting underway -- click image for 20 second movie of painting (0.5mb)

blue complete, crimson just beginning

detail showing blue and crimson dots

airbrushed dots completed on large canvas (75 x 45 inch image area)

The acrylic paints I used (from ETAC are, except for the white, trasparent pigments. The overspray from the darks really ate up the lights, and the overspray from the white ate up the darks, so there's a huge variation in dot size and in color which I didn't intend.

In order to get this to look ANYthing like the (wonderful) intensity of the 'plan' (don't you just LOVE tiny bitmaps?), I'm going to have to knuckle down and paint the 216,000 dots by hand. Any idea how long THAT might take? Couple of weeks, I suppose... But how COOL will it be with so many little Hershey's kisses paint dollops? Cool, I think. And I want to see that badly enough to just DO it!

So... Enough Golden fluid acrylics (so I can apply by syringe, I hope) should arrive any day now and I can get started with some more needlepoint work (now that my stocking is done) in paint instead of yarn... I'm kinda dreading this, but I WANT this painting to be 'right'! Hopefully a GORGEOUS canvas full of bright intense colored dots will eventually become 'real'

-- Mike

"Jim" Collaboration with Lawrence Lithography Workshop underway - special pre-edition pricing available!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:58:00 +0000

At the opening of the Kemper Museum "Backstage Pass" show last month, master printer Mike Sims of Lawrence Lithography Workshop invited me to design some images for him to publish. I made half a dozen designs for him and he selected "Jim", a litho using six plates, three of various transparency white inks and three of various transparency black inks on mid-value paper.

I experimented with a number of possible paper colors and decided the Tan was most appropriate for the image, although likely too light -- but I really wanted the paper (not ink) to establish the mid-values as it peeks through all the tiny spaces between lines and through the transparent inks used in four of the plates.

In order to create the mockups I actually created program files as though I were going to make these drawings on my CNC machine. Then I spent a few days writing a new program to convert my drawings into AutoCad DXF files which I loaded into Adobe Illustrator. This was VERY cool (to me) as it allowed me to experiment with various line thicknesses and transparencies and paper colors in order to optimize the films for the plates by 'seeing' accurate previews of the finished print before any plates had been burned or proofed. The image below is reduced from one such full-scale mock-up.

click image for nearly life-size mock-up (2mb PDF)
"Jim" 42x30 inches, lithograph from six plates on Rives BFK Tan paper
pre-production pricing -- contact Lawrence Lithography Workshop for information

I'd originally imagined we could 'dye' white paper a nice mid-gray using sumi or other water-based pigment -- my thought here was to print lighter and darker inks so that the paper color becomes the mid-range of the image, the image being produced from cross hatched squiggley lines similar to my recent drawings.

I tested my paper-coloring idea and abandoned it as beyond me. LLW suggested printing the entire sheet gray, but that was unappealing to me... It's important to me to maintain the 'paper' quality of the paper. So I tested the design, trying out various available papers and decided on Rives BFK Tan which is dark enough for the image and adds a very appropriate color.

In order to accomplish the drawings for the plates, I wrote some (very cool) code to prepare my squiggly lines for a local pre-press shop to produce films from which Mike Sims and the Lawrence Lithography Workshop folk could make the litho plates.

The films for the six plates arrived today and they are pretty spectacular, actually! WOW! I'm SO excited and happy to see these -- and very satisfied to have more or less precipitated my ideas into 'reality' so directly and effortlessly! Here's a photo showing Aaron Shipps (Tamarind Institute master printer and Mike Sims' assistant) with some of the large film positives from which they'll make the plates.

Master printer Aaron Shipps with films for "Jim" lithograph.

Plates were burned from the films yesterday (10-17-2007) and they turned out GREAT! Totally amazing to me what perfectly clear sharp lines appeared when the plates were developed. This is going to be a very successful print, I think, and the scale is terrific. VERY exciting, and very gratifying that Lawrence Lithography is investing such an enormous amount of time and money in publishing my work!

Master Printers Aaron Shipps and Mike Sims develop plate
click on image to view movie of plate creation (00:03:30 4mb)

Printing should begin on Monday!

October 25-26, 2007 -- first proofs of "Jim"

click image above for movie (3.5mb download) pulling first complete proof

Mike Sims (foreground) and Aaron Shipps (background) inspect proofs at LLW

First proof of "Jim" (click image for detail)
amazingly close, I think, to my mock-up (first image in post)
but whites are too cool and perhaps too opaque in the proof...

The BFK paper has turned out to be too light in value to provide the mid-values the image requires. We're considering various measures to darken the paper... Tea-staining the BFK Tan to make the paper darker overall, printing a flat over the entire sheet, printing a 7th plate in a mid-value under the image (I've produced an image for film to accomplish that, but that method is pretty far afield from my 'pure' concept of lightening and darkening the paper through cross-hatched squiggles, so I'd much prefer either finding or producing a darker paper than under-printing the 7th plate...

November 5 and 6 proof on BFK Tan paper which I printed mokuhanga style from two blocks (first printing a cherry block in a blue/green, and then an ash block in a neutralish red which gave the pronouced wood grain)

The proof above might be the direction we follow for the print. In this one, a silhouette in dark brown was printed on top of the mokuhanga style woodgrain printing, then the six blocks in whites and blacks was printed on top. Today, I'll run over to LLW to print four more sheets in a similar fashion, but a bit darker, and we'll try to eliminate the silhouette plate. The middle black in the print above was TOO transparent, I think, and didn't pop properly, so we'll try to fix that as well. Lots of work ahead before it's ready for editioning!

Jim dropped in to see some of the proofs at LLW 11/28/2007

More to follow as the edition proceeds!

-- Mike

Self Portrait, painting in acrylic on linen, 60x40 inches

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 17:28:00 +0000

Today I completed something a little bit 'different'... Looking back to the velvet paintings displayed at the 5 and dime when I was a kid -- maybe they're still up there today -- hula girls, Elvis in all his glory, typical 60's kitch in stiff opaque color practically glowing out of that black-black velvet... Well, I didn't so far as to actually paint this on black velvet (which would have been pretty nice in a retro-leisure-suit sort of way -- but I'm just not that 'cool' I suppose).

So this is painted on stretched linen in transparent titanium white acrylic on a carbon black ground.

self portrait, Oct 11, 2007, 60 x 40 inches, acrylic on stretched and primed linen
click image for nice enlargement

Just getting started
click image to view Windows Media Player movie of painting, 700kb download, 35 seconds)

I first painted the entire canvas black, then applied many layers of white paint in order to build whiter and whiter lines out of previously painted white lines -- so each successive overpainting made that area whiter and more opaque.

The only dark values in the painting come from the black underpaining -- nothing but successively more opaque white was used to produce the image.

Up close, it's pretty intense and interesting because of all the stringy white squiggles and circlets from which the image is constructed...

-- Mike

1968-1976 Film and Animation by Mike Lyon

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:20:00 +0000

	1968 hand scratched and hand colored 8mm film -- my least self-conscious conceptual work, I suppose. Made in an evening from developed but unexposed reel left over from narrative film that my fellow student, Bart Cohen, and I made for a project in English. I was 17 and just goofing around after a long night of editing. (3.6mb 0:03:21 silent)
	1972 Morning Paper -- claymation (0.8mb 0:00:10 silent)
	1972 Shootout at the JS Korral -- cast includes my future in-laws, Jack Keeney, Jr (scowling in the thumb), Matt Thayer, Pat Keeney, Jack Keeney, and (briefly), their collee, Doogie. Everyone wanted to die in the film, and did. 2007 titles replace the original hand-written and unreadable ones (5.1mb 0:04:40 silent)
	1972 Go Cart animation -- 20 or 21 year old me racing around the yard (1.9mb 0:00:20 sound)
	1972 or 1973 Flying -- experimenting with the moving clouds background. Ink on paper. (1.5mb 0:00:17 silent)
	1973 Sculpture -- final project at KCAI sculpture fall, 1973 to represent 3D work in 2D. I'd majored in sculpture at U of PA, but KCAI department was a shock and I didn't 'fit' well. My instructor said the film was the most interesting work I'd done during the semester and gave me a "C", I think. The original film was about 10 minutes -- this version has been sped up and shortened considerably (2.9mb 00:02:38 narrated)
	1975 the making of Mother Mother -- my 24 year old self painting and animating. (8.0mb 0:01:26 narrated)
	1975 8mm test of Mother Mother -- one of a series of test animations(1.6mb 0:00:18 silent)
	1975 16mm Mother Mother (final but never completed) -- gouache on paper cut-out animation of a recurring nightmare I had during childhood. About four months of long days and late nights. Only previous showing was a screening in my living room for director John Altman fall, 1975 -- he said, "Keep up the good work! What do you plan for a soundtrack?" (4.8mb 0:04:15 narrated)
	1976 Lothar running (Steve's dog) -- ink outline of Steve's dog, Lothar, running, drawn to repeat infinitely. (1.7mb 0:00:18 silent)
	1976 paper ducks -- one or two hundred duck contours cut out of construction paper -- holes animated first, then cut-outs. (1.5mb 0:00:17 silent)
	1976 Steve jumping (outlines) -- ink outlines accumulated on single sheet. (0.9mb 0:00:09 silent)
	1976 Steve jumping (filled in) -- about 1,000 ink-filled contours on tracing paper. (1.8mb 0:00:20 silent)
(more to follow, eventually)

Backstage Pass opened at Kemper Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 22:53:00 +0000

Last night, Linda and I had a ball at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art here in Kansas City. It was the opening of their new show, Backstage Pass: Collecting Art in Kansas City which runs September 7–November 4, 2007.

(l-r) Roger Shimomura paintings, Chuck Close prints, Mike Lyon drawings
play short video of exhibition highlights, (2.5 minutes 2.7mb)

By pairing artworks from area private collections with examples by the same artists represented in the Kemper Museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition offers visitors a rare opportunity to see outstanding paintings, photographs, and sculptures by internationally acclaimed artists, including Willem de Kooning, Duane Hanson, Deborah Butterfield, Helen Frankenthaler, Lezley Saar, and Mike Lyon, among others, normally housed in private homes and offices. The diversity and quality of the featured works are not only a testament to Kansas City’s rich history of supporting the visual arts through public and private patronage, but also proof to the thriving support and enthusiasm for the arts in the city today.
...(from Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art)...

Partial catalog of exhibition with mention on page 2 (click image to view PDF)

Equally important are the collections that include works by artists that reside in the Kansas City area, such as Wilbur Niewad, Roger Shrmomura, and Michael Sincair. Portraits by Andy Warhol and Kansas City-based Mike Lyon illustrate the gratifying relationship that often develops between artist and patron-arguably one of the most enjoyable facets of championing living artists.

Rachael Blackburn Cozad, Director
Christopher Cook, Curator

Wow! What a thrill!

-- Mike

43 x 27 inch acrylic on BFK painting (self portrait improved)

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:56:00 +0000

I've been working on this painting continuously since I first posted an image of it July 1 (by continuously, I really do mean 24/7, of course). The paper just couldn't take any more physical contact -- it had become extremely abraded and fuzzy -- so I switched over to using an airbrush and painted it in many layers alternating between a deep blue-black acrylic in the mid to dark areas and white in the light to mid areas. That beefed up the color in the abraided (dark)areas. The development of color, texture (quite genuine sculptural texture, albeit fuzzy), an unusual impasto, and a kind of battle between white and black through all the layers of light and dark is VERY INTERESTING to me and has stimulated me to move in some new (actually ancient -- I'm thinking mid-value ground with light and dark scribbles defining the image out of the mids, like renaissance chalk drawing, maybe) directions which I'll continue to experiment with later this summer.

In the meanwhile, gentle reader (always wanted to write that somewhere -- now seems as good a time as any, right?), here's the current (and final) state of the painting I first showed in my July 1 post...

Self Portrait, 43 x 27 inches, July 10, 2007, painting in acrylics on Rives BFK

-- Mike

54 x 29 inch gesture painting (self portrait)

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:48:00 +0000

Another 'gesture' painting -- this one uses the same gesture character set as my earlier (and smaller) airbrushed "Jim", but the gestures are slightly larger (1/4 inch squares) and are painted using the Paasche Flow Pencil, so the tip touches the paper. It's painted on Rives BFK, so the paper surface has been abraded quite deeply -- more and more with each additional stroke of the tip across the paper. I like the effect, but it interferes with the clarity of the line and with the paint flow, so I imagine that I'll use a stronger paper for my next effort.

self portrait in gestures, July 3, 2007, ca 59 x 32 inches, acrylic on Rives BFK

movie (~4mb be patient)

In the movie above and photos below, three colors have been painted in order: black, yellow, red. A final color, blue, is starting to go down along the left side of the portrait.

painting underway -- starting to lay down the blues

detail of area around eye -- three colors down

detail of area around eye -- completed

-- Mike

40 x 22 inch image acrylic painting "Self Portrait"

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:32:00 +0000

Self Portrait, 40 x 22 inch image area, July 1, 2007, acrylic paint on Rives BFK paper

BFK is a very soft paper -- because the tip of the flow-pen actually touches the surface, the paper becomes abraded (deeply abraded) as the tip repeatedly passes over the same areas. The very rough and sculptural surface is quite attractice in this painting -- everyone who's seen it wants it. My wife, I think, got 'first dibs'...

-- Mike

Painting with Paasche Flow Pencil

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 13:42:00 +0000

Painting blue/black acrylic paint on self-portrait #2

I'm working on a short series of painted self-portraits at the moment. I've mounted a Paasche Flow Pencil (very much like an airbrush, only without the air -- the 'nozzle' is conical and a needle valve seats in the nozzle in order to control the flow of paint. The Paasche is not a very high-precision device, so fluids which aren't very viscous (like water) flow out quite fast, even when the valve is 'closed'.

I suppose I could'a figured this out in advance, but it seemed to me that coffee or tea stained paper would make a good first trial image and clean-up would be very easy... WRONG! WHAT A MESS!

So viscosity about like cream works quite well.

First attempt -- connection to solenoid broke and pen never lifted so paper got messed up!

I removed the little paint-pot which came with the flow pencil and replaced it with a water bottle I'd modified for the purpose. The cap has the paint outlet mounted in it and I mounted a vacuum-relief/pressure port (to force more viscous paint to flow using a bit of air pressure) on the side (a tube runs to the 'bottom' of the bottle so air can get in). This allows me to fill the bottle with paint (or whatever) without making a mess, mount the cap, and connect the hose to the pen before inverting the bottle and allowing paint to flow. Works well.

Because the pen doesn't have many parallel surfaces -- it's all cones and curves and joints, it wasn't easy to conceive a way to hold and actuate it. In the end I decided to make it easier for me to construct the gizmo and so I made it to kinda work backwards (power-off allows paint to flow -- so when it stops, paint keeps running). A single solenoid both lifts the pen off the paper and releases the trigger, stopping the ink flow while the pen is moved to a new painting location. When the solenoid is 'off', a spring pushes the pen down onto the paper or canvas and actuates the trigger at the same time.

The paper surface on my 2nd attempt is now badly abraded with 'fuzz-balls' all over the surface in the darkest areas -- next attempt I'll use a heavily sized paper and adjust the height of the flow-pencil so it JUST BARELY TOUCHES THE PAPER!

I'm VERY excited about the possibilities for color work, both directly (painting flat areas of transparent color), and especially indirectly (using weighted gestures again) since the flow-pencil produces a VERY sharp-edged line -- much cleaner edge than my airbrush!

-- Mike

"Rick" 75 x 45 inch pen and ink drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:22:00 +0000

Today I completed "Rick", another large scale pen and ink drawing, this one measuring 75 x 45 inches on Arches 300 lb. hot press watercolor paper.

"Rick", March 27, 2007, pen and ink on paper, 75 x 45 inches

"Rick" exhibited at Art Chicago, 2007 (photo: Julio Rodriguez)

-- Mike

"Anthony", 83 x 45 inches, pen and ink drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:08:00 +0000

On March 19, 2007 after 240 hours of continuous drawing with pen and ink, I completed "Anthony", a pen and ink drawing 83 x 45 inches on Arches 300 lb. hot press watercolor paper.

"Anthony", 83 x 45 inches, 2007, pen and ink on paper

-- Mike Lyon

"Jim" acrylic gesture grid painting on Rives BFK 42 x 24 inches

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:21:00 +0000

Today I completed a second painting of "Jim" using the 16-value geometric gestures from the previous attempt, but scaled down so that each is 0.2 inches square, producing an image about 40 inches high by 22 inches wide. The 200 x 120 gesture grid (24,000 squares) was painted more than six times using four colors until the color depth was pleasing (to me)... The previous airbrush clogging problems of airbrush have been virtually eliminated by switching to paint manufactured by E'TAC -- GREAT stuff!!!

The 17 gestural values (16 from darkest to lightest in equal 'steps' plus blank/white) overpainted in four transparent colors are capable of producing 83,521 (17^4) unique color patterns. From some distance, the painting is a fair likeness of Jim and I like this image very much. But close up, the patterns dominate and I think they're remarkable and intensely interesting -- much more so than the image alone -- quite compelling to me, really!

I'd like a better balance between these near and far views, but I suspect that viewing this sort of work up close is always going to be more exciting and thought provoking than the overall image... I'll have to give this some more thought!

"Jim", painting completed March 3, 2007, 43 x 24 inches, acrylic on Rives BFK

detail of forehead and hair

detail of eye and ear -- click image for enlargement

detail of neck and shirt -- click image for enlargement

early state -- yellow has been completed, red uderway

early state with red uderway

early state -- closeup of red going down on yellow

movie of airbrush painting

-- Mike Lyon

Backsliding... "Jim" painting 80 x 44 inches (image area) -- a colorful MESS

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:21:00 +0000

Yesterday (February 13, 2007) I completed a first LARGE painting using an airbrush mounted on my CNC machine to paint 22,000 0.4 inch squares (200 x 110 squares) in four transparent colors on Rives BFK paper. One of 17 simple shapes designed to produce tone in even steps from lightest to darkest was painted in each color over each square in order to produce the image.

click image to pop up a VERY LARGE version or click HERE for a medium size enlargement

movie of painting underway

I programmed a set of the ‘gestures’ (diamonds, and squares in various sizes and an ‘X’ and a ‘+’) to be painted in order to produce the 17 tones in the painting :

It's taken the better part of a month to complete and I've likely now made most of the possible mistakes which show up quite painfully all over the surface. Gigantic blobs of watercolor leaking from my pigment bottle dripped onto the paper and were then blown all over the place by the air brush as it passed over the painting. Watercolor slowly clogging up the airbrush and leaving vertical 'light' areas in stripes. Watercolor spraying out too densely and leaving vertical 'dark' areas in stripes. Lines too thick. Lines too thin. Color too rich. Color too lean. The yellow layer offset a column to the left (the other colors were painted after a programming change which calculated the placement differently). Airbrush too close to the paper and too much paint volume resulted in LOTS of color blown out in tiny little splats. Dirty airbrush left broad haloes of color adjacent to lines. Lines unclear and fuzzy-looking.

Here are some details (click for enlargements) of interesting areas of the painting:

Let me hear what you think, please... LOTS of work to do to get this thing working well enough to make decent stuff, I fear!

-- Mike

PS... My friend, Jerry, just had a look at this page and phoned to say, "I should just keep my mouth shut... But... You're totally back-sliding". After advising me to immediately forward the image to the CIA for their use as 'proof' of WMD in Iran (referencing somewhat similar aerial views of Iraq offered up by the White House some years ago), he directed me to Vasarely images familiar from my childhood before (and I'm condensing here) and suggested that I get on to 'making Art'... Yup... That pretty well sums it up, I think... OK -- I'm getting on with it now...

Painting machine 84 x 45 inch watercolor painting underway

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:39:00 +0000

My new 17-value airbrush characters seem to be working – now if I can only get my airbrush to not clog up after an hour or 30 minutes or 90 minutes – otherwise it’s gonna require constant supervision which ain’t worth it (and BORING)!

Apple QuickTime movie of painting underway

Here’s an image of my spreadsheet calculations of area – I’ve made a set of ‘gestures’ – diamonds, and squares in various sizes and an ‘X’ and a ‘+’:

The ‘X-area’ column is the list of gestures D for Diamond, S for Square, X for diagonals, and P for Plus and the 3-digit number is the area in thousandths that an eighth inch line produces in a 1 inch box.

These are designed to be overpainted in each of red, yellow, blue, and black according to the color and value content of the corresponding area of an image. I’ve got a sample image partially painted in yellow, blue, and red now and it’s pretty much electrically brilliant! There are 17 to the 4th theoretical color possibilities (83,000 plus variations), so PLENTY of variation!

THEN I had to write the program to analyze the image and write the ShopBot code – my code reads an initialization file I wrote in ShopBot code which defines the characters and the subroutines to call them, then the program goes on to analyze each pixel in the image and generate the ShopBot code to position the machine to the pixel and do the painting. The SO,3,1 turns on the airbrush and SO,3,0 turns it off. M2 means Move in 2 dimensions (x,y) – J2 means FAST Jog in 2 dimensions (x,y)

Sub output_sbpcode_for_cmyk() ' 1/26/2007 gesture generator... Mike Lyon
' THE NEXT TWO LINES ARE FOR CONVENIENCE IN INITIALIZING CURRENT DRAWING LOCATION
' IT'D BE A GOOD IDEA TO ENTER THIS LOCATION IN THE FORM ALONG WITH &scale
PrintLine(3, "SO,3,0")
PrintLine(3, "J2,8,45")
PrintLine(3, "' MRL-generated GESTURE CODE from image")
PrintLine(3, "' position bot at top left of drawing first!")
PrintLine(3, "&xstart = %(1) ' remember beginning x value")
PrintLine(3, "&ystart = %(2) ' remember beginning y value")
PrintLine(3, "&scale = .4 ' this is 1=100% of 1 inch, .4 = .4")
PrintLine(3, "&rrr = 0 ' initialize rows (Y) variable")
PrintLine(3, "&ccc = 0 ' initialize X variable")
skipit = 0
lines_written = 10 ' TO ACCOMODATE TWO LINES ABOVE -- NORMALLY SET TO 0
PrintLine(3, "GOTO ROW_1")
While Not EOF(1) ' include the gesture subroutines file
sbp = LineInput(1)
PrintLine(3, sbp
lines_written += 1
End While
For rrr = 0 To rawimage.Height - 1
PrintLine(3, "ROW_" & rrr + 1 & ":")
PrintLine(3, "&rrr = " & rrr)
lines_written += 2
For ccc = 0 To rawimage.Width - 1
' getbrightness returns value from 0 to 1 where 0 is black and 1 is white
zz = Math.Round((1 - rawimage.GetPixel(ccc, rrr).GetBrightness) * 16, 0)
' 0 is digits to rt of decimal
If zz > 0 Then
If skipit > 0 Then
skipit = 0
End If
PrintLine(3, "&ccc = " & ccc)
PrintLine(3, "GOSUB " & zz.ToString("00"))
lines_written += 2
Else ' zz = 0
skipit += 1
End If
If Button5.Text = "END" Then Exit Sub
Next ccc
Label20.Text = "Writing " &amp;amp; rrr & " --- " & lines_written
ProgressBar1.Value = 100 * rrr / rawimage.Height
Call updateform()
If Button5.Text = "END" Then Exit Sub
Next rrr
PrintLine(3, "J2,&xstart,&ystart ' back to initial location and ready for next color")
PrintLine(3, "END")
lines_written += 2
End Sub
lines_written += 2
End Sub

This is actually only the working part of a MUCH longer program – the long program gets input from a screen, checks to make sure it all makes sense, and then calls the appropriate operation, in this case the subroutine above… Here’s what the screen looks like when the program is running (just finished generating the ShopBot code for the color ‘cyan’ for a Jim Winter drawing:

COOL, eh? I added the new code onto my existing program so I wouldn’t have to rewrite all the file and form handling – can’t believe it actually works!!!

I’ve defined some subroutines named after each of the 17 possible values (00 through 16 is white through black) which call the gestures I’ve designed to produce the values -- – the first routine listed below is for ‘black’ or value 16 – it calls .313” square, .438 square, .234” plus, and .338” diagonals in turn to produce the ‘shading’ in that area.:

Then I defined the movement for each ‘gesture’ – these are shown below as ShopBot subroutines – you can ‘call’ the subroutine (GOSUB D375 calls the .375 square inch diamond, for example) – the starting corner position is assumed to be in the variable “&xstart” and “&ystart” and the scale factor in &scale. Then the row and column indexes are in &rrr and &ccc variables – in a 100 row x 50 column image, for each rrr (1 through 100) I position to each column ccc (1 through 50) and draw the gestures for that position.

Finally, here’s just the very beginning of the completed code to produce 0.4” squares (&scale = .4) for a very STUPIDLY large drawing 200 squares high by 110 squares wide… Next time I’ll start a bit smaller :-)

SO,3,0 ‘ turn off the airbrush
J2,8,45 ‘ jump to the beginning of the drawing – remove this for normal operation – this is for debugging only
' position bot at top left of drawing first!
&xstart = %(1) ' remember beginning x value
&ystart = %(2) ' remember beginning y value
&scale = .4 ' this is 1=100% of 1 inch, .4 = .4
&rrr = 0 ' initialize rows (Y) variable
&ccc = 0 ' initialize X variable
GOTO ROW_1 ‘ jumps around the gesture subroutines which follow below and get right to the painting!
' this is the start of a gesture subroutines file
' scaling of &scale = 1 (100%) makes marks in a 1" square
' at &scale = 1 (100%) marks are to be 1/8" wide
' gesture call names are LETTER followed by number nnn
' D = diamond shape of .nnn area
' S = square shape of .nnn area
' X = crossed diagonals of .nnn area
' P = 'plus' (vertical & horizontal) of .nnn area
' main calls are 00 through 16 and represent values (tone or shade) from white to black
16:
' this is entry point to produce darkest gesture (value 16)
GOSUB S313
GOSUB S438
GOSUB P234
GOSUB X338
RETURN
15:
' entry point to produce next to darkest gesture (15)
GOSUB S188
GOSUB S438
GOSUB P234
GOSUB X338
RETURN
14:
GOSUB S438
GOSUB P234
GOSUB X338
RETURN
13:
GOSUB D375
GOSUB S063
GOSUB S438
RETURN
12:
GOSUB D375
GOSUB S438
RETURN
11:
GOSUB D250
GOSUB S438
RETURN
10:
GOSUB D375
GOSUB X338
RETURN
09:
GOSUB D250
GOSUB S063
GOSUB X338
RETURN
08:
GOSUB D250
GOSUB X338
RETURN
07:
GOSUB S188
GOSUB X338
RETURN
06:
GOSUB D375
RETURN
05:
GOSUB S313
RETURN
04:
GOSUB D250
RETURN
03:
GOSUB S188
RETURN
02:
GOSUB D125
RETURN
01: ' entry point to produce next to lightest gesture
GOSUB S063
RETURN
00: ' entry point to produce blank (do nothing)
RETURN
D375: ' entry point for 37.5% diamond
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.5 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 1 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 1 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.5 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
D250: ' entry point for 25% diamond
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.125 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.5 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.875 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.875 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.5 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.125 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.125 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
D125: ' entry point for 12.5% diamond
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.375 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.5 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.625 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.625 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.5 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.375 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.375 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
S438: ' entry point for 43.8% square
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.0625 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.0625 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.0625 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.9375 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.9375 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.9375 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.9375 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.0625 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.0625 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.0625 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
S313: 'entry point for 31.3% square
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.1875 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.1875 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.1875 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.8125 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.8125 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.8125 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.8125 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.1875 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.1875 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.1875 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
S188: ' entry point for 18.8% square
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.3125 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.3125 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.3125 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.6875 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.6875 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.6875 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.6875 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.3125 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.3125 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.3125 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
S063: ' entry point for 6.3% square
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.4375 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.4375 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.4375 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5625 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.5625 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5625 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.5625 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.4375 )
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0.4375 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.4375 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
X338: ' entry point for 33.8% 'X'
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 1 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 1 )
SO,3,0
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 1 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 1 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
P234: ' entry point for 23.4% 'plus'
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + .5 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + .5 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 1 )
SO,3,0
J2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 0 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
SO,3,1
M2, &xstart + &scale * ( &ccc + 1 ), &ystart - &scale * ( &rrr + 0.5 )
SO,3,0
RETURN
‘ THIS IS THE START OF THE ACTUAL DRAWING routine to produce Jim painting -- black layer:
ROW_1: 'nothing in this row
&rrr = 0
ROW_2: ' nothing in this row
&rrr = 1
ROW_3: ' nothing in this row
&rrr = 2
ROW_4: ' nothing in this row
&rrr = 3
ROW_5: ' column 24 is first area to paint
&rrr = 4
&ccc = 24
GOSUB 01 ' draw gestures for gray value = 1 of 0-16
ROW_6:
&rrr = 5
&ccc = 25
GOSUB 07
ROW_7:
&rrr = 6
&ccc = 26
GOSUB 02
&ccc = 144
GOSUB 02
&ccc = 145
GOSUB 04
&ccc = 146
GOSUB 04
&ccc = 147
GOSUB 01
ROW_8:
&rrr = 7
&ccc = 26
GOSUB 10
&ccc = 138
GOSUB 05
&ccc = 139
GOSUB 08
&ccc = 140
GOSUB 11
&ccc = 141
GOSUB 11
&ccc = 142
GOSUB 13
&ccc = 143
GOSUB 15
&ccc = 144
GOSUB 15
&ccc = 145
GOSUB 15
&ccc = 146
GOSUB 15
&ccc = 147
GOSUB 15
&ccc = 148
GOSUB 15
&ccc = 149
GOSUB 14
&ccc = 150
GOSUB 13
&ccc = 151
GOSUB 13
&ccc = 152
GOSUB 13
&ccc = 153
GOSUB 12
&ccc = 154
GOSUB 11
&ccc = 155
GOSUB 06
ROW_9:
&rrr = 8
&ccc = 26
GOSUB 09
&ccc = 27
GOSUB 07
&ccc = 133
GOSUB 02
&ccc = 134
GOSUB 07
&ccc = 135
GOSUB 10
&ccc = 136
GOSUB 13
&ccc = 137
GOSUB 14
&ccc = 138
GOSUB 15
&ccc = 139
GOSUB 14
&ccc = 140
GOSUB 12
&ccc = 141
GOSUB 12
&ccc = 142
GOSUB 10
&ccc = 143
GOSUB 08
&ccc = 144
GOSUB 09
&ccc = 145
GOSUB 09
&ccc = 146
GOSUB 09
&ccc = 147
GOSUB 10
&ccc = 148
GOSUB 11
&ccc = 149
GOSUB 11
&ccc = 150
GOSUB 09
&ccc = 151
GOSUB 12
&ccc = 152
GOSUB 12
&ccc = 153
GOSUB 13
&ccc = 154
GOSUB 13
&ccc = 155
GOSUB 14
&ccc = 156
GOSUB 16
&ccc = 157
GOSUB 12
ROW_10:
&rrr = 9
&ccc = 26
GOSUB 02
&ccc = 27
GOSUB 12
&ccc = 131
GOSUB 05
&ccc = 132
GOSUB 13
&ccc = 133
GOSUB 14
&ccc = 134
GOSUB…

It goes on and on like this – two or three of these commands for each of the 22,000 squares in the drawing – then the next color paints over them, then the next color, and on and on for WEEKS!!!

But it works!!!

-- Mike

Painting machine tests -- photos and a movie

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:18:00 +0000

Yesterday and today I've been experimenting with the new computer controlled painting device and the results are encouraging -- a few interesting problems (maybe these will turn out to be 'characteristics') which I hope to resolve, but -- well, see for yourself (click the play button on the movie -- about 1 minute long):

-- Mike Lyon

computer controlled paintbrush gizmo complete

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 00:18:00 +0000

Computer controlled paintbrush gizmo up and running as of 30 minutes ago!!!

Parts for airbrush assembly – the airbrush itself is just above the angle iron with the solenoid already installed. Solenoid plunger above it, little bent aluminum airbrush retaining clips above airbrush – the angle iron gets bolted into the aluminum pipe and holds the airbrush vertically in the center of the pipe – the plastic pipe shims the assembly out to proper dimension for my holder… Ink/paint bottle at left and “Z” clip to keep the plunger from falling out is next to plunger – it’s a damned simple solution given how long it’s taken me to figure out!

The new paintbrush assembly almost ready for installation!

The completed assembly (minus ink bottle) is mounted in machine – the interface board came from ShopBot – it’s very simple board with five relays driven from program controlled outputs in the ShopBot controller (the ribbon cable you see accordion-folded runs from top of the board over the cable umbilical of the machine and into the main ShopBot control box… I use only one of the relays (and 24v power from the controller) to energize and deenergize my little solenoid which pushes the button on the airbrush…

I mounted the relay board onto the Z-axis of the ShopBot in a little plexi box I built this afternoon – the box should keep the board clean when I’m routing instead of painting… The cover is open at the bottom and just slides down over the plexi back in some nicely fitted grooves in the sides of the cover. You can see the brush assembly mounted into the machine at the bottom of this photo.

Here’s a view of the business-end of the assembly neatly mounted in the machine – the air hose has a quick-release at each end so it’ll be a snap to change over from painting to drawing to routing – but I’m going to need to build a 2nd generation drawing control to fit the relay board the same way and using a 24v continuous duty solenoid which I now have on hand instead of the intermittent duty 110v solenoid I used for the previous two drawings (and melted one of the coils in the process, unfortunately – that won’t happen again once I’ve converted over to the 24v device – and I won’t have to worry about 110v finding its way into the delicate electronics (or my delicate body, either)…

You can see the 24v solenoid wires (white wires) about 1/3 up from bottom left, and solenoid plunger on button of airbrush and black air hose coming in from right… Since it works in reverse of pen-lifter, I have to program a new converter before I can use it (the pen solenoid got powered when it was to STOP drawing – the brush gets powered when it is to PAINT, so my old program is reversed and I need to make a simple change in order to generate the proper code for the new airbrush… Should be testing with actual paint tomorrow!!! YIPPEE!!! But… The thing does actually WORK right now, the computer turning the airbrush off and on with command, so I’m ready to go!!!

-- Mike Lyon

"Jim" large scale pen and ink drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 21:47:00 +0000

Large scale pen and ink drawing -- a portrait of my friend, Jim W. At 84 inches high (7 ft) it's one of the largest of my drawings. I like the rendering of the hairs and of the fabric of the shirt where the woven threads can be made out in places...

"Jim", Dec 19, 2006, 84 x 45 inches, pen and ink on Arches watercolor paper
Corporate collection: Emprise Bank, Wichita

(detail)

-- Mike Lyon

"Shea" 77 x 45 inch pen and ink drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 15:45:00 +0000

I've been using the Z-axis of my CNC machine to lift the pen from the paper during jogs to new drawing locations, but these very small movements of .05 inches or so have severely worn a single tooth in the pinion gear which moves the Z so it will have to be replaced... In order to avoid such uneven wear in the future, I developed a solenoid operated pen lifter which also significantly speeds completion of the drawings, as the solenoid lift and drop is almost instantaneous while the Z moves much slower... "Shea" involved about 5 million lines of movement code including over 100,000 pen lifts -- seems to work quite well!

Here are two photos of the controls mounted in the machine and working:

The mounted assembly in operation

Detail showing simple pen guide (a small hole)

Here's the completed pen and ink drawing of "Shea":

"Shea", Dec. 4, 2006, 77x45, pen and ink drawing

"Shea" detail

-- Mike Lyon

"Arthur" 77 x 42.5 inch pen and ink drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 16:20:00 +0000

"Arthur" pen and ink drawing completed October 31 after 282 hours -- almost 9 miles of ink line and 8 million lines of machine movement instruction. This one used a new (to me) pen with oil based ink and I'm not very fond of this pen at all. Drawn on Rives BFK paper, the paper turned out to be too soft to hold up well under all the drawing, the ink went in somewhat grayish and although I very much like this image of my 83 year old friend with the youthful eyes and hair, Arthur Kase, the drawing itself lacks the crispness of my previous work. The pen eventually abraded the paper surface in the darker areas and then kinda soaked into the rough surface in a way I don't much appreciate.

"Arthur", Oct 31, 2006, 77 x 42.5 inches
pen and ink on Rives BFK paper
Private collection
(exhibited September 7–November 4, 2007 Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art)

I'm about to begin another drawing, this time using water-borne pigmented inks and a tiny capillary pen. But first I have to solder up a little circuit to actuate a pen-lift solenoid so that the tiny hollow nib can 'float' over the paper without bending and breaking. Should begin this full color drawing middle of next week and I'm very excited to see this one develop!!!!

-- Mike

"London" 78x45 inch pen and ink drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:50:00 +0000

"London" pen and ink drawing completed this morning after 208 hours -- 5.83 miles of ink line (just under 1/2 inch drawn per second) . I think I like it! You may click the images below to see larger versions!

"London" completed September 13, 2006, 78 x 45 inches, pen and ink on Arches 300 lb. hot press watercolor paper
Collection: Barkley (formerly Barkley Evergreen & Partners)

detail: click image for enlargement

-- Mike

gallery walk through -- Mike Lyon: Large Scale Drawings and Woodblock Prints

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 19:25:00 +0000

The opening Friday, September 1 of "Mike Lyon: Large Scale Drawings and Woodblock Prints" was a pretty humongous party! I suppose more than 600 people passed through the gallery that evening between 7 when the doors were unlocked and about 9:40 when Sherry Leedy shooed the last of us out the door. I saw MANY old friends which was just wonderful.

I've posted a short FLASH movie -- a walk through of the gallery and show including a few brief and very impromptu interviews

click to watch Flash movie (about 9mb)

my VERY old friend (when I lived in New York, I occasionally walked him to pre-school), the now best selling author Seth Mnookin and his friend Sara visited the next day while they were in town for a wedding and it was great to touch base again (photo: Jennifer Bowerman)

My old painting instructor, retired chair of the Kansas City Art Institute's painting department, Wilbur Niewald, was there -- he just returned from a Guggenheim Fellowship spent painting in the Southwest US. He had the most wonderful time and we've got a dinner planned to find out all about it. Wilbur's close friend, another retired painting professor at the Art Institute, Michael Walling was there and bought my "Fixing Hair" print. That was very nice.

Another KCAI retired faculty member, Victor Babu (of ceramics fame) visited and really seemed to love EVERYthing! He's an enthusuiastic guy and characterized my big "Sara" reclining nude woodcut this way: "Omenish, very very omenish -- the deep-deep-darks and the figure turned away -- as if she's sad or angry and maybe she's talking about it -- but what's she saying? She's rolled away up there but there's that comfortable knitted thing up front -- it's soft, but she's turned away from the comfort thing and us and all those deep blues -- omenish... very VERY omenish!" -- I asked him to please write my artist's statement! (ha, ha)!

view entering gallery

The director of the Kemper Museum, Rachel Blackburn, was there and bought the big "Sarah" drawing for their permanent collection. That felt great, I can tell you! Doug Freed, Director of the Daum Museum was there earlier with Dr. Daum and bought bought the big "Jon" drawing for their permanent collection! Wow and double-WOW! Very validating to me that these two excellent regional contemporary art museums stepped up and collected my most recent work on opening day!

Kemper Museum director, Rachel Blackburn

The place was a beritable BUZZ of activity all night long -- people pressing their noses right up against the prints and drawings, pointing and talking and it all seemed very energetic and positive! Now I've settled down a bit and am waiting for post-partum depression to overwhelm me!

-- Mike

Mike Lyon: Large Scale Drawings and Woodblock Prints Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Lyon) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:40:00 +0000

An exhibition of my recent work titled: "Mike Lyon: Large Scale Drawings and Woodblock Prints" runs September 1, through October 21, 2006 at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, 2004 Baltimore, Kansas City, Missouri. Opening: 7-9 pm First Friday, September 1, 2006, hours 11-5 Tue through Saturday, 816-221=2626. Here's the gallery's mailer (folds are in the mailer, not the drawing):

click image for enlargement

-- Mike