Printmaking | Spring 2026 | Week 3

January 26-February 1

1. Nine 4×4″ mini panels & 7″ round collages

I completed the warm-up project I set for myself by combining laser cut cat shapes with monoprinted, painted and collaged paper on wood panels. The shapes of these were inspired by Ed Emberley (always), the cats I fostered as a pandemic project (Alaska Cat & Dog Rescue – animal heroes!), and a dormant sketch of snake cacti from the Desert Botanical Garden in Tempe, AZ (Nyctocereus serpentinus / Peniocereus serpentinus). Somehow the snake cactus and the foster cats managed to be snaky, noodly, spiny, and somehow always doing something unexpected with their forms. I’ll take better photos of these when they’re varnished and ready to hang.

I also managed to finish two small 7″ round collages with laser cut paper patterns and extra cut circles from past projects. I recently visited the UAA Planetarium and Visualization Theater with my kiddo and am looking forward to a potential livestream of the launch of the Artemis II, which will orbit the moon with a human crew for the first time since the 1970s. The fly-bys of the sun, moon and planets managed to influence these small pieces.

2. 20×60″ vertical panel

I moved this sketch from a marker drawing on paper to Adobe Illustrator and planned my laser cuts based on the materials I have pre-cut and bed sizes. I’d like to add more dynamic colors and textures in the production stage, where I can get back some of the texture, layers, and freedom of the drawing.

3. A digital library of vector texture patterns to be cut from paper, wood or acrylic

A lingering project I wanted to fold into this semester of printmaking, I collated this library of vector textures for cutting out of paper, plastic sheets, or other materials. I solved the mystery of why these patterns continued to appear in my sketches when I realized they all can be found in household goods and home improvement materials. The artwork in my home and natural structures that I see every day somehow concealed the many human-created, industrial patterns in this compilation. Initial embarassmant at the mundanity of DIY projects has given way to gratitude that (1) I have a safe, affordable, warm, comfortable home to improve in the first place and (2) appreciation for the engineering needed to create even the most basic of repair tools for a most basic home, and (3) the global network of manufacturing, supply chains, and retail availability that brings these bizarrely uniform, banal items to me personally in Anchorage, Alaska. Showerheads, drain covers, debossed toilet paper, expanded metal grating, radiator fins, anti-fatigue mats, cookware, hardware cloth, chicken wire, paper towels, joint reinforcement plates, tile underlayment, rows of ABS pipe, electrical outlets, and drywall tape are just the beginning: I will inevitably find more patterns to add as my home requires trips to the big box stores.

I used many of these textures in my series of mixed media collages, “Akrasia” – see the gallery here.

Contact me for the working files if you’d like to use these textures: they’re set up for a 12×12″ piece of paper but could be expanded for larger format laser cutters or other CNC tools.

Delaunay Triangulations / Voronoi Diagrams

In a search for mesh patterns, I found this article created from a Masters thesis by Jörg Krämer, Dec. 1995, from the Aerospace Engineering Department, Middle East Technical University, Turkey. My math skills are not up to understanding the conceptual basis, despite an ancient-history visit to the Mathematical Society of America’s conference in 2007 (Linfield / McMinnville, Oregon – John Conway talked about surreal numbers – were you there???) Nevertheless, here’s the outline:

What is a Delaunay triangulation ?

A triangulation is a subdivision of an area (volume) into triangles (tetrahedrons).

The Delaunay triangulation has the property that the circumcircle (circumsphere) of every triangle (tetrahedron) does not contain any points of the triangulation.

The Delaunay triangulation is the dual structure of the Voronoi diagram.

Applications

Simulation of the growth of cristals

Metallurgy (examination of alloys)

Cartography, town planning

Computation of neighbouring problems (computational geometry)

Mesh generation for finite elements methods, stereolithography, visualization of surfaces, etc.

This online generator creates Voronoi diagrams that can be easily transformed into vectors and then CNC working files. Additional transformations in Adobe Illustrator can create rounded corners, other line thicknesses, fill with variable colors, and much more: it’s a great tool for making space-filling textures that have both a mathmatical basis and a natural mesh aesthetic. I’m reminded of the microscopic structure of leaves, bone marrow, and collagen fibers in skin: irregular, strong, and flexible.

As one last note on exploring math as a non-math expert: “According to Sir Michael Atiyah, former president of the Royal Society and arbiter of mathematical fashion, ‘“’Conway is the most magical mathematician in the world.'” Dr. Conway was so charismating during the keynote speech I attended that the long-term effect has been a sneaky, ongoing pilfering of math visualizations for artistic use. I can’t wait to learn to use Processing for computational design and algorithmic craft someday soon. AI art feels inevitable and abhorrent, but I look forward to getting into the mud with code and Illustrator transformations and manipulations, not pillaging other artists’ work for source material.