We’ve recently visited the National Gallery to see “The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler”. The show focuses on the model and her collaboration with Whistler. But to me the really extraordinary aspect of the show were the intaglio prints by Whistler that are prominently on display.

Whistler was an amazing etcher. His drawing skills are sublime. But, it’s an altogether different matter to draw on copper with an etching needle. Whistler was such a master of this and of the more challenging technique of drypoint. Of course, that’s the intaglio technique in which a sharp tipped needle (sometimes diamond tipped, as shown below) is used to scratch directly on to the plate.

It isn’t hard at all to do, if you don’t mind jagged, erratic marks. But Whistler’s drypoint lines dance and swirl. They are so very liquid and so very beautifully descriptive. And sometimes they are so bold, utilizing the burr that is particular to drypoint to create an almost furry line (below, seen as the brightly reflective edge of the scratched copper).

 These dark lines (seen in the detail of the print Jo, below) contrast often with very light lines (the very delicate lines describing the contours of the models face as seen below in Weary). Whistler’s control was extraordinary. And, it is another wonder how the artist wiped his plates. A printmaker covers the drawn plate with a viscous ink, usually black, and then carefully removes it so that ink is left in the lines, but not on the plate’s surface.. This is so tricky! Often, eliminating plate tone, comes at the cost of wiping ink from the delicate lines. 

And, considering the kinds of marks a printmaker can utilize, the work of Vick Vogl is another extraordinary example. She is an artist with a vast knowledge of art, art history, and particularly, the craftsmanship of making art. She is a master of aquatint, which is another subject altogether. But what I’m pointing out here is a print she has done called Strings. Her work reminds me so of Goya, but it is filled with joy and delight. But, in the eye of this wonderful rabbit creature, we have a bold glint that is actually a hole in the plate. Did she drill it, or just have the good sense to put it to work for her? Her work is worth much study.

We travelled recently to Denver. What I'm always perplexed by is the notion of traveling to a specific destination with expectations of what we might do there. We did in fact have a wonderful visit with family and stayed in a friend's very beautiful house. But three very unexpected things stand out for me. The grain silos already mentioned here in Salina, Kansas, Google Map's strange route taking us out of Denver when we left that had us on a gravel road through prairie land with hawks perched on every telephone pole, and this magnificent sunset which we found in Troy. Illinois. It's the unexpected nature of these things. Like miracles where you'd least expect them. It's this that I want to get into my art. The thing that surprises and makes you, for a moment, forget all else.