(pictured: Junkyard Dog, Chicken in a Basket, Strato Lounger, all from 1993, editions of 90) Beginning in 1993 his prints are much brighter, and the thinner ink allows more complex designs. This resulted in fewer damages, and it preempted the computer in advancing George’s use of color in these prints. Most significant was the switch from paint to silkscreen ink. Within a few years silkscreen techniques advanced, and George and his printer grew more adept at the process. (pictured: Sometimes I Feel Like a Blue Dog, 1991, silkscreen, 22×28 inches, edition 200) (We hold ours in Rodrigue’s archives and no longer offer them for sale). The frequent damages, combined with an average edition size of ninety prints, means that only a fraction of these early prints remain in good condition. In those days the price point was $75 to $150, meaning that prints were rolled in tubes, thumb-tacked on dorm room walls, or even dry-mounted (glued down when framed). The color is very thick on the paper, leaving the print susceptible to damages, particularly scratches, chips, and dings. Those early years also challenged George because he used paint, as opposed to silkscreen ink, to create his prints. (pictured: Dogs in Space, 1991, silkscreen with hand-painted eyes, 33×25 inches, edition 25) In some cases, to save money and damages (after all, his printer pulled by hand in those days), George actually painted certain areas of a print, rather than run an additional color. (pictured: Codex Blue Dog, 1991, silkscreen 28×22 inches, edition of 90 with screen proofs) This involved a lot of guesswork, because the colors appear different when applied to the paper, and oftentimes the prints from the early 1990s included numerous trial runs and color changes until George achieved his desired result. In the beginning he created simple designs and chose flat paint colors, providing corresponding numbers to his silkscreen printer, who then ran a proof. When stacked, the tracing paper formed a complete image. In those early years, before the advanced computer tool, he drew a sketch on tracing paper for each color within a print. For more on this see the posts: Blue Dog: Out of Control, 1993-1995 and Blue Dog 2000: The Year of Xerox. George often says that had he discovered the Blue Dog earlier (before his lessons with the Cajun paintings and prints), he might have ruined it. He approached this print-making carefully, because he knew that he had something special in the Blue Dog designs, and he worried that mass-produced, cheap posters might ruin his art’s longevity and alter its perception in the public eye before he had a chance to explore the concept. The large scale (37×28 inches) and more than seventy colors of Morning Glories Blonde proved awkward, expensive, and prone to damages.Īlthough George first painted the Blue Dog in 1984, it wasn’t until 1990 that he silkscreened the image. However the dark landscape did not translate well into silkscreen form, and so he stopped with one small run. He did try silkscreening a landscape, Oaks on Bayou Teche, in 1970 and a Jolie Blonde, Morning Glories Blonde, in 1988 (both pictured below). Prints of George’s Cajun paintings are for the most part inexpensive offset lithographs, mass produced, and intended for sale at festivals and poster shops. (pictured: Hot Dog Chili, 2000, silkscreen, 32×18 inches, edition 120) Although dismissed by his professors, the Pop Art style and process impressed George and remains a strong influence today. You may recall from the post Art School: Lafayette and Los Angeles, 1962-1967, that George first saw Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans and other works at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles during the mid-1960s. (pictured: Gallery Edition II, 1990, silkscreen, 28×25 inches, edition 90)Īndy Warhol laid the groundwork for this type of print-making both for George and for other artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, and Robert Indiana. To put it as simply as possible: there are no paintings of the prints, and no prints of the paintings. In other words, most paintings are one-of-a-kind images without reproductions in any form, and most prints are original images, without a painting of origin. Since his first Blue Dog silkscreens beginning in 1990, the prints in most cases are unrelated to the paintings. *note that George uses the word ‘silkscreen’ in place of ‘serigraph,’ intending the same meaning. (pictured, 2010, 33×26 inches, partially a benefit for the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts) In recent years he uses the computer to design his silkscreens so that the print itself, as opposed to a painting, is the original work of art. George Rodrigue’s newest silkscreen* print, We Blues Dem Away (Ain’t Dat Super) is a typical example of his print process.
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