Inspired by my circa-2004 Holga, I simplified the composition down and re-arranged elements for proportion, made a quick sketch, then drew the final artwork over 36 hours.

I’m excited Big Ink is coming to town again, printing April 5th and 6th at the American Sign Museum. Big Ink specializes in traveling throughout the United States, helping artists print large format woodblock prints.

This will be my fourth Big Ink — and my goal is to create an impactful image that showcases the rich contrast of the dark black with the bright white of the Masa paper.

I’ve been an amateur photographer since I was in high school and 20 years ago I embraced the lo-fi aesthetics of Holgas, Lomo’s, Polaroids, and Super 8mm film in my work.

Sometime around 2004 I was downtown and captured this dynamic angle of the Genius of Water and one of the corner figures framed within the contour of the Carew Tower. I thought the successive and growing negative space of the sky created an interesting shape.

For the adaptation to the woodblock print, I did composition studies where I changed the format from a Holga’s square to a proportion that works when scaling an image to a 9”x 12” and 18” x 24” — proportions that fit popular frame sizes.

While sketching, I used the rule of thirds to align elements, and for the final composition I found it was best to allow the foreground figure to break the edge of the Carew Tower.

My issue with the 2004 Holga photograph that I took, is that the Fountain was facing West at that time and the Genius of Water’s back is to the camera.

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Knowing about Cincinnati history, throughout the 1900s the Fountain was facing East and I was inspired to simulate that angle to create a reference composition. I felt I needed to capture the essence of place and not be constrained by the conventions of a plein air landscape.

“What’s he doing to that goose?” My dog Fuji during a December visit to the Square for reference photography.

My intention with the image was to evolve and hone my ability to capture light with crosshatching as well as the depict sky.

2019 was my first Big Ink at the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus, Ohio. I followed up with a night scene in 2022 at Tiger Lilly Press and my personal best woodblock print “Dawn on the Roebling” in 2024. In 2019 and 2024 I felt I could make progress with my depiction of clouds. Also, I feel I have room to grow with depicting figures in my work and the figures in the fountain provided a challenge to grow.

I am content that I made progress in improving my skill as an illustrator while I do acknowledge that I see areas that if I had more time, I would have preferred to spend more time on.

I worked with Grainwell in Covington, KY to create the 31” x 44” laser-engraved plate.

Due to time constraints, this year I chose to forgo hand-carving my block and to laser-engrave the printing plate. I was intrigued with the idea of reducing my cost of labor in the final edition.

In 2024, this is how I spent time on my 60” x 25” “Dawn on the Roebling Bridge” Big Ink woodblock print:
Image Development/Idea: 2 Hours
Reference Photography: 3 hours
Pre-block illustration: 14 hours
Carving: 82.5 hours

So far in 2025, I have spent more time on image development and the Illustration, but the final result will be an accurate autographic image of the illustration directly on the printing plate:
Image Development/Idea + Reference Photography: 9.5 Hours
Pre-block illustration: 36:20 hours
Preparing Woodblock for printing: TBD, maybe 5-7 hours

Join us for live printing!
The American Sign Museum is located at:
1330 Monmouth Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45225

Many thanks to an old colleague Kricket who is currently working in Marketing at Mad Tree. My work will be on display in the hallway of the Oakley location.

The temperatures were barely above zero when I treaded cautiously on the icy sidewalk, over Macmillan’s bridge to take the reference photograph of a golden sunrise casting cool shadows. During our recent stay in a Red River Gorge cabin I used the iPad to rough in a quick sketch for a future screenprint using five colors.

Halfway through this year I visualized a roadmap for my creative journey over the next couple of years:

2024 (Fall) – Launch Queen City Scenes work and opening at Essex

2024 (Winter) – For Heritage Modern Series prep Music Hall and perhaps a 24x18 and 12x9 Aqua and Red reprint with the updated for January printing at DIY.

2025: experiment with painting and watercolor monoprints between other focus projects

2025 (Winter and Spring) Focus on Intaglio; first etching and aquatints and perhaps mezzotint if there is time. Create a print series for four 4” x 5” copper plates and two to four 2” x 3” Experiment with hard vs soft ground; line vs tone using hard ground hatching or even soft ground shading vs aquatint tone

2025 (Spring) View from Devou Etching: State 1 is hardground linework, State 2 aquatint tones. State 3 hand-color a small portion of the edition. High Res scan after each state.

2025 (Summer): Start to explore linocuts and working with smaller detail

2025 (Fall) Experiment with Color Woodcuts and Registration; B&W woodcuts hand-colored, and lastly white line technique

2025 (Winter) Start Big Ink 2026 project

2026 (Winter) Big Ink!

A composite image created in Photoshop from the best prints from the evening spent in the studio.

I really loved my “View from Devou” monoprint series from 2023. For that series I spend over a month aiming to create my best work.

Unfortunately recently my experiment combining watercolor monoprint painting under a black layer failed, mainly due to lack of time and luck.

I mis-pulled the first print, missing a section in the middle. I wish I just re-pulled at least getting 1 good print.

Perhaps I will get this on press again in the future.

If you’re interested in one of the black-and-white prints I ahev posted them here:
https://www.billiterstudio.com/shop/covington-riverfront-at-dusk-print

Watercolor underlayer on drying rack. On the left is print 1 of 3; perhaps you can see where I missed the middle while pulling the squeegee.

Kona was the muse that sparked my Queen City Scenes collection — I was always inspired by our walks and seeing the city from many vantage points.

One year ago today we had our last adventure in the studio. We got up early for a hike at Armleder park, then painting watercolor in my studio and a midday hike at Burnet Woods.

Our last day was during my View from Devou monoprint series.

Featuring some art prints from my Queen City Scenes, Heritage and Geo Modern collections:

A friend reached out about starting up a print business that would use digital printing to create work. Here are some of my thoughts tailored for the Cincinnati market:

Digital Printing

First, I think pursuing open-edition, digital printing is a great strategy. My biggest issue right now is having so much inventory.

Moo – I have not used them before, I have used Vistaprint but only for business cards

Seamless or Corporate Printing in Cincinnati: getting to know the printer and I feel you can spec some paper stock. They use higher-end Xeroxs.

Robin Imaging in OTR: Higher-end giclée prints

Jakprints: Cleveland based, great for prints and stickers

StickerMule: Great for stickers

Contrado: I've used them for print-on-demand garments and they have other housewares

Zazzle: I've used them for print-on-demand

Other strategies:

- Etsy: post images that are print-at-home

- Drop shipping: 

   - Printful: I have used them, they integrate into my Squarespace, but I am not blown away by their quality

   - Gelato, Finerworks, ThePrintSpace, Giclee Today, and Prodigi are some I found via Google. Research and have a sample of your work shipped to you to see if you like the quality.

Print-on-demand and dropshipping will give you less share/royalties of the price BUT you get to do a lot less and have a lot less inventory on hand.

Idea:

With Claire coming from a background in the arts and printmaking, this product model might be interesting:

Original artwork $$$$

Limited-edtion, hand-printed $$$

Open edition, digital: $

This could be the same image. Ink & Craft did this. This way you could have the fulfillment of making art and producing work, having originals might allow you into more premiere events like but offering a product

Sales:

- Roughly 55% of my sale came from in-person events in my heyday

- 22.5% were from online sales

- 22.5% were from wholesale/consignment

Accounting/Business:

- I would recommend if you plan to scale up a business to start working with an accountant to track expenses

- I set up a business checking account so the sales and expenses were separate and easily trackable

- Consult with them about State Vendors license, or when the right time to have an LLC or acquire general liability insurance

- Inventory: work with them around any inventory or depreciated assets you may need to get started

Price:

- I started out matching market-rate for gig posters nationwide, you could do a comparative audit of other creatives/artists/makers you admire

- As I got into wholesale I would make sure my labor (time creating artwork), cost to print, cost of packaging would be covered in the first 50% of the price.

This also helped when working events, my labor and booth fees could be covered by the second 50%, or online where the website fee and potentially postage would be covered by that second 50%

Online Selling

What is the most successful selling avenue for you? Insta, Facebook or online? Or is it more local shows or retail? We are so curious about that, and are not sure if we should dive into one vs. another, or do a little of both to start.

- Squarespace: I've had my main online shop with them. I can create an Instagram/Facebook business page and integrate my shop into their developer/business portal

- Square: I used Square as my point-of-sale for a long time. I also really love them for inventory tracking. They also offer the ability to build a website that is an online shop.

Local Markets:

What are the ‘best’ local market/seller or events to be in, if that’s something you recommend?

- Crafty Supermarket: my best indoor show. It happens twice a year, May and Nov/Dec

- CityFlea: My best outdoor market

- OFFmarket: Has grown to be about as good as CityFlea.

- Art on Vine: Indoor in winter, outdoor in summer. A good place to gain experience; very opening and they help people get their start

Others: Westside Market, Westwood Art Show, The Market at Medpace,

Packaging:

- I use ClearBags for sleeves and backing to sell prints

- I use Uline for durable shipping materials like mailers and tubes

- Shippers: EcoEnclose, StickerMule, Packola, CustomPolyMailers look cool, I haven't used them yet

Consignment/Wholesale:

Have you gone the route of commission-based sales, like at coffee houses and other retail? Is that even a good way to go, in your opinion?

- I started with some consignment, I typically got a 60/40 split. When I got busy it was hard to track inventory and sales. I really liked working with Handzy, they were organized.

- I prefer wholesale, where I get 50/50 and sell the inventory for the store. This advantage is that it's on the store to move products and to buy work that will resonate with their customer base.

Subject Matter:

Do you have an option on themes/subject matter that really has pull? Do you think more artistic or unique/personal styles work as well? We love your Cincinnati prints, and were wondering how that’s worked for you and/or evolved over time.

- A long time ago I did my first show and I experimented with 4 different types of subject matter. The Cincinnati work came from some work I had done and from an authentic love for the city and its history. I gravitated to that because I was rewarded more by the customers.

- I would recommend having a personal ethos you develop over time, and using trends and the marketplace to stay relevant

In June of 2022 I started a drawing inspired by one of my favorite views — after hikes and bike rides I love to see the Cincinnati skyline from Devou Park’s overlook.

In June of 2023, I finally got to burn the screens and after another month passing I was able to finally get a block of time in the studio to paint. I expanded my color palette of Procion Dyes I use as a watercolor medium – taking time to re-mix and experiment with test prints (below).

What I love about these watercolor monoprints is the ability to be both loose and free with watercolor but also having the control of painting within a stencil on the screen.

Planning a few more variations while I have this image in the screens. More to come!

Last year an image popped up that I had forgotten about: Georgia O’Keeffe’s “New York Night.” My Father-in-Law Dave gave me an Art Deco in America book and it was included in the works.

Inspired, I daydreamt what if I could look down Vine Street at Night, but from the vantage point of a bird’s eye view with Carew Tower in the foreground.

I used Google Earth to fly in and create the desired vantage point and started using ProCreate on the iPad to start illustrating my initial intent.

Planning to go into more detail or ownership of the illustration/image.

Aquatint etching with à la poupée inking experiment.

“Desales ar Dawn”
6” x 8”
Intaglio, 2023

I wanted to experiment with number 3 lithography crayons over spray paint aquatint and using timed biting to create an atmospheric scene. Looking to improve definition of Desales’s iconic steeple with future etching and more attention while inking the plate.

Many thanks to instructor Stephanie Berrie for the incredible instruction and sharing your passion for and knowledge of intaglio! And many thanks to Tiger Lily Press for providing the platform for continuing my print education!

Plein Air Study on iPad

Hopefully in the next year I will create a detailed etching of Cincinnati and Covington from the vantage point of Devou Park.

In January I went down to take reference photographs and to make a plain air study to make sure my eye would capture nuances in the moment.

Leap forward to June. Below you can see my progress — I’ve drawn for about 14 hours so far but I still have a lot to go!

I’ve been working on a graphite drawing. Dusting off my pencils and skills after learning a ton in Design Drawing during my first year in design school back in 1996.

Planning to experiment to see how the graphite texture screenprints.

This image was inspired by a 5mile walk last summer with my dog Kona, where we went through Newport and Covington then visited the Square during a Hip Hop concert. I love when downtown is full of people, arts and vibrancy!

I've been developing a new collection of work I'm calling "Queen City Scenes" — inspired by the long tradition of urban landscapes. The work will be into more fine arts than my typical graphic arts, still emphasising but not limited to printmaking.

I’ve been slowly building up some somewhat finalized artwork as well as some rough sketches. I’m experimenting with some scenes with dramatic skies or taking place during the day but I am also attracted to the drama of night scenes as well.

My initial process is inspired by photo journalism — finding reference photography by proactively scouting locations for dramatic and beautiful lighting. This comes rather easy as we go for walks with our family dog Kona and love to explore the riverfront and the parks on the surrounding hills.

“Covington Riverfront at Dusk” work in progress — using ProCreate on the iPad to illustrate an urban landscape. I plan to personally screenprint a 30” x 20” version.

I started work last August during my first visit to Detroit. I really enjoyed evening rides along their river walk then coming back to my hotel and cuddling up with my iPad. Drawing can be so relaxing and I should do more before bedtime.

Not quite finished yet, so far I’ve spent about 15 hours in the image, enjoying the shading.

“View from Devou” work in progress from June. Relaxed on a lovely family vacation to Red River Gorge by drawing a scene in Adobe Fresco on an iPad in the evenings and mornings.

I was inspired to work on a fun watercolor screenprinted monoprint after binge-watching episode of “Painting with John” and watching the watercolor spread.

Hoping to create a watercolor monoprint of this scene in the upcoming months as part of my Queen City Scenes collection

As a senior in High School I became more aware of a larger body of work that Warhol produced, from the early commercial work as well as the films. It’s safe to say there was an influence there and directed me towards a career in the graphic arts.

Recently I watched “The Warhol Diaries” on Netflix and thoroughly enjoyed viewing the progression of his career a little more in-depth with some insight from his personal point-of-view.

I want to note Warhol did publish many of his screenprints on his own, but also worked with a number of printmakers during his career. Working with Alexander Heinrici from 1974-1976 and then with Rupert Jasen Smith from 1977 until Warhol’s death in 1987.

This is an interesting video from Tate Britain following one artists method to reproduce Warhol’s work.

Some of the work-in-progress digital paintings and sketches in my ProCreate app.

Before embarking on this new collection and goal of “12 masterpieces” in 2022 I have been doing some electronic sketches and studies using the iPad and the app Procreate. Above are some of the sketches I have been producing over the winter.

I’ve been trying to get into the practice of documenting scenes and the effects of different times of day and the light, as well as the atmospheric gas affects of the clouds.

I’ve been also trying to get interesting vantage points and views of urban landscapes that might resonate with other people.

Once I build up this collection of subject matter and I plan to start experimenting with a variety of production methods:

- multicolor Serigraphs

- serigraph watercolor monoprints

- polyester lithography

- letterpress, magnesium plates

- woodcuts

- engravings (but need to teach myself)

- acrylic  and oil paintings

- watercolor paintings (maybe studies)

- pen and ink drawings

The past few years I feel like I've been balancing commissions with maintaining the Cincinnati Heritage Collection. I have been experimenting here and there with styles and developing new collections.

I've settled on a new collection that feels less graphic arts and advertising based and more observational art prints of scenes. This new collection may still be based in Cincinnati, but it feels a bit more liberating and I enjoy capturing reference imagery and using printmaking to capture reality in a stylized manner.

The prompt of 12 in '22 is inspired

by my 52 in 2011

—a

New Year's resolution

that really started this current chapter of my career. In 2011 I felt very stagnant creatively, so I set the goal of creating 1 piece of artwork or creativity per week to re-inspire myself. With this new prompt of 12 in '22 I want to create 1 strong piece per month, and focus on quality of execution during the development of this new collection of work.

Last year I had the pleasure to develop a new piece experimenting in this new style to the Tiger Lily Press Calendar. I went to the Cincinnati Riverfront in the evening and photographed reference for a great cropping of 3 landmarks from our skyline that would fit into a 6" x 8" crop. I spent about 17-18 hours illustrating the scene, and about 16 hours printing 150 of the 3-color prints (what a long day!).

I'm planning to adapt this series to other mediums as well; for instance an idea for a woodblock of the riverfront at night (see below) and also to continue my work in Polyester Lithography as well.

 One of the assignments for Jay Harriman's Intro to Polyester Lithography was for each student to create a self-portrait in the same size format, and we will print our collective prints onto sheets to create a group portrait.

For mine, I wanted to capture the many styles I work in, so I gridded my face and would apply mono-lineweight to some areas, halftones to others, realistic ball-point pen as well as a loose wash using carbon black acrylic paint.

The final effect is definitely kind of silly and maybe a little amateur-ish.

Below you can see an in-progress group portrait with four of the 7 artists having printed: