Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Tugboat Printshop

Today I'm feeling particularly inspired by the incredible works of Tugboat Printshop. If you haven't heard of them, Tugboat is a collaborative husband and wife printmaking duo based out of Pittsburgh. They make seriously beautiful woodcut prints:

"Forest" -- I would love to have this on my wall



"America the Beautiful" -- the detail in this piece is incredible

Last summer at Renegade Chicago, I was able to meet Valerie at the Tugboat booth. It was really awesome and equally awkward. I had slight "WHAAA you're one of my favorite artists!!!" fever.

     ME: Wow, hi. Hi. I love you your work. I love your work.
     TB: Oh, thank you...
     ME: I was in the college, and I took a class. Where I made the prints.
     TB: ....Printmaking?
     ME: Yes! That's what it's called, printmaking. One and two.
     TB: That's nice...
     ME: I was inspire by you. Your work... amaze me. So good. So good.

I'm not even kidding, I sounded like an idiot. And I knew it, but I just couldn't stop the grammatically incorrect fragments from tumbling out of my mouth. I quickly had Sharon snap a photo of me next to "America the Beautiful" and ran away in shame.

It is what it is.


I'm pretty sure I'm blushing here...


 An in-progress detail shot of "Garden"
 

Out of all the creative processes, I probably have the most respect for printmaking, especially wood block printing. It's tedious and time consuming work, but the results are amazing. All of Tugboat's prints are filled with wonderful detail and each print tells a story. I could stare at them for hours.

For more on Tugboat Printshop, check out their website, blog, or visit their Etsy shop.
All images via Tugboat Printshop

6 comments:

Sharon Telschow said...

I do believe I recall this moment - you should have no shame. They make truly amazing work for which there are no adequate words.

Abbyblujay said...

annnd that is amazing. i don't feel bad about meeting Joy then at all. I'm actually still laughing...

Katherine Ross said...

@Sharon -- You are absolutely right. I feel like my response was an appropriate reaction to their artwork, as ridiculous as it was :)

@Abby -- Yep. What else can I say?

Emily said...

haha, i totally know what it's like to do that...the hole just gets deeper and deeper. ;)

Unknown said...

i especially like the "forest" print! anything with a bunch of trees makes me swoon a little bit.

Tang said...

Hahaha that was a really cute convo though!