Duck & Dragonfly---Open Edition Lithograph

MEDIUM 8 Solid-Color
Lithograph, Gold Foil
Stamping and Embossing

IMAGE SIZE 21" x 15.25"

PAPER SIZE 30" x 21"

Sprint commissioned me to do a poster showing "competition". That's where the 2 ducks chasing a dragonfly idea came from. Fortunately, my client at Sprint, Tom Bestor, loved the idea.

I guess I really haven't yet talked much about my main inspiration of Japanese woodblock prints from Edo period Japan. (Edo is the former name of Tokyo and the Edo period was from about 1650 to 1800.) Duck and Dragonfly is a good example of how I translated that design sensibility into my art.

The vertical lines symbolized Japanese screens. I depicted water as a series of horizontal lines. Negative space also figures greatly in this piece.

I guess I should also say something about the printing. When we published them, these vintage prints were pretty hard (and expensive) to do compared to what was available on the market. There weren't many, if any, publishers who produced prints this same way.

Without getting too technical, most of the posters I've published utilize the lithographic printing process. However, this 4-ink process was NOT how I printed most of my vintage lithographs. Duck & Dragonfly, for example, was printed with 8 specially mixed inks. And I have to say, making a foil stamping die as large as we did for this image and having it line up with the artwork for the entire print run was a crazy undertaking technically. The print also has an embossed artist's dragonfly chop down in the area where I sign my name. Duck & Dragonfly has been my best selling open edition print.

The result was a thicker ink coverage for a richer looking print--more similar to serigraphs, actually. The foil stamping and embossing added to the richness of the overall print.