Littlest Print

The Littlest Print Exchange is a juried trade of tiny art prints. Chris Clark started it last year and artists were invited to submit an edition of 50 prints and in return received a portfolio of 50 prints from all 50 individual artists. http://littlestprintexchange.blogspot.com/ What makes this exchange particularly challenging is the size requirement. They really are small prints!

This year, participants in the exchange are asked to consider the theme of Cliché when producing work for the 2010 portfolio. Paper must be exactly 3” X 3” but the image size is up to the individual artists.


Along this line, I decided to focus on the idea of feminine beauty. Women are constantly bombarded with beauty issues through advertisements, television and magazine articles. What constitutes perfection? How do women “measure up”? The old clichés: “Beauty is only skin deep”, “Beauty is as beauty does”, and “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” immediately come to mind in this image driven society.

I created a composition dealing with the idea of the perfect pair of jeans, waist measurements and lacing up in a corset to meet the “ideal” proportions. The image was transferred to a sheet of acetate and exposed onto a Solarplate. After printing, I hand colored the measuring tape using watercolor.


My plate measures 2.25” X 2”. This was the smallest intaglio I’ve ever done and it was a little tricky wiping a plate that small. Just to emphasize the small size, I photographed the plate next to a brayer.