Deep At Sea - Process

Renee Robbins, Deep at Sea, 3 color screen print, 2013.

The piece considers the shape of waves and the constantly shifting form of water.

Limited artist edition: of 27.
Dimensions: 11.5 x 11.5”
Materials: 3 color screenprint on paper

This print was made in collaboration with classical composer Seth Boustead.
Listen to the Deep at Sea Companion song by Seth here.

ABOUT: The edition was a collaboration between Spudnik Press, Homeroom Chicago, and Access Contemporary Music. The 2013 Ten x Ten project that pairs composers with visual artists to produce a song and print. There were concerts and exhibitions of the project which included 10 visual artists and 10 composers. The original edition set of 200 with prints and a vinyl record is now sold out. I have a few available from the small artist edition created with the project.

MY PROCESS: I made 5 original paintings/drawings preparing ideas and exploring forms for the project. I often call my works on paper drawings even if I use paint. After I did the originals, I next drew three layers with an old fashion quill pen and brush and ink on transparent film. The films were needed to burn screens to produce the different colors of the screen print. The print has three layers of blue. The edition was printed by hand by Chicago printmakers at Spudnik Press.

The print is available in my webstore here.

STUDIES in gouache and colored pencil

Studies for the larger originals which were made first.

Studies for the larger originals which were made first.

Original paintings in gouache and colored pencil

Hand Painted Films
using a Quill Pen, brush, & Ink

hand drawn film layer 1

hand drawn film layer 2

hand drawn film layer 3

Ten x Ten 2013

Ten x Ten, 2013 Edition

Ten x Ten is a collaboration between visual artists and musicians exploring visual and auditory interaction. By challenging artists to conceptualize their work across media, Ten x Ten asks participants stretch and expand their creative process. Through producing a limited edition compilation and public presentation of the resulting artworks, Ten x Ten documents, celebrates, and promotes Chicago’s artistic community.

Ten x Ten 2013 investigates the relationship between color and sound. Through exploring the underlying concepts of synesthesia, both academically and intuitively, artists and composers have worked together to produce artwork that takes the form of both a fine art print and an original score.  This project is presented by Access Contemporary Music, Homeroom, and Spudnik Press.

Featured print and song collaborations:

Lilli Carre and Michael Miller
Edie Fake and Andrew Tham
Jo Dery and Jude Mathews
Aaron Renier and Brain Baxter
Chad Kouri and Marjorie Rusche
Craig Hansen and Betsy Start
Aaron Maurer and Tim Corpus
Ann Worthing and Amos Gillespie
Angee Lennard and Randall West
Renee Robbins and Seth Boustead

The collection of prints includes an LP with ten unique tracks, a hand-printed folio, and a plastic protective sleeve.

 

Garage Mural - Trail of Fireflies: Hot Summer Nights

Trail of Fireflies: Summer Nights, 83” h x 190” w , spray paint and acrylic on metal, 2024.

Summer and winter seasons merge in this otherworldly landscape with shapes and patterns derived from the dance of the fireflies. The winter season is shown by painting trees without their leaves and summer is represented with green grass and firefly markings. Looking at sunsets is one of my favorite activities as they are colorful, ephemeral, and forever changing throughout different weather and cycles of nature. I used artistic license with the colors of the sunset behind the weaving lines of the river. Different species of fireflies create different marks when they glow and fly through the sky. Some make a dot, dash, squiggle, zig zag, or a even a j-shaped flash. It’s pretty rare to be able to see this many synchronous fireflies glow at one time. I have only experienced it though viewing time-lapse photography. The images and phenomena were so inspiring to me that I wanted to immortalize them in a painting. It gives me great joy to imagine their nightly flights. The firefly marks have become a recurring motif in my work and I have incorporated their glow in many paintings. I used Montana Gold spray paint for the background and Nova acrylic mural paint for fine details on the trees, pink flowers, and firefly marks. As typical in my work, the pink flower forms are not literal flowers but flower inspired. They could also be marine creatures, amoebas or something else. I try to evoke a hybrid of subjects in each of my artwork forms and invite the viewer to use their imagination.

See other artworks that incorporate my firefly motif here. The mural design was inspired by one of my smaller studio paintings shown on the firefly blog. That painting is in now in a private collection.

The project took about 36 hours including 6 hours of priming. I used an existing painting and slightly altered it for the initial design to fit the garage format. The smaller studio painting took around 3-4 months of full-time work spread out over 1-2 years time.

Please reach out to me about custom murals. I would love to collaborate with you.

Mural Process