Dan Welden
PO Box 520
Sag Harbor, New York, 11963 USA
Telephone: 631/725-3990
Email: Solarplate@aol.com
Demonstration: "Solarplate: an Alternative, Safer Approach to Printmaking without Acids, Solvents or Grounds"
I will demonstrate, from beginning to end, a two color, multiple plate process utilizing intaglio and relief techniques on Solarplates. This spontaneous demonstration will show how anyone with a press can easily produce very high quality impressions, equivalent to photo gravure.
This "low technology" demonstration will show the painterly approach of the monotype, by creating directly on a presensitized Solarplate. Dan will begin the demonstration by drawing, painting and mark making using ordinary printing inks. Two plates will be created side by side. The intaglio plate will be created as a POSITIVE image which the artist can visualize all blacks will be blacks. The second plate (the relief image) will be created as a NEGATIVE.
The plates will be exposed to a unique portable light unit and then developed with ordinary tap water. There are no acids, carcinogenic grounds, or solvents used in the processing. Dan will ink and print the two plates with two colors. A portfolio of many different artists' works will also follow the demonstration.
DAN WELDEN is a printmaker and painter who has had over 58 national and international solo exhibitions in Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Switzerland, Peru and Germany. He has been the recipient of several grants including The New York State Council on the Arts, The Vogelstein Foundation, NY, The Ministry of Dutch Culture in Belgium, The Amata Aboriginal Community in Australia, and The Diocesan School in Auckland, New Zealand. He has collaborated and/or printed for many prominent artists including Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Eric Fischl, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers, Dan Flavin, Jim Dine, Robert Motherwell, Lynda Benglis, David Salle and Kurt Vonnegut. He is also responsible for the discovery and development of the "Solarplate" process. and co-author with Pauline Muir of Printmaking in the Sun. As an educator, he has established his own international school for the past 6 years in Florence Italy; Lima, Peru; Tokyo, Japan; Corsica, France; and Mykonos, Greece. In 2000, he was the keynote speaker for the New York State Art Teachers Association Convention.