Garden Path

I know; it's been forever since I've posted anything. What have I been doing? Shoveling snow, chatting with the phone company about our dead phone, shoveling snow, yelling at the phone company, shoveling snow....... etc., etc. Plus, of course, the holidays. So, for a bit of relief (or is it relief from the relief?), I'm posting this little 8" x 6" oil on canvas panel that I painted last fall in the back yard. I left out a lot of trees, as I just wanted to concentrate on all the colors.
The critter show came down yesterday. It was a moderate success; the few people that saw it (it snowed on reception night) loved it and we made a couple of sales.

Kitty Puss

Here's another critter, in the same general vein as the Patches print. This one's a bit bigger, at 6" x 8" and was also done with four colors on three woodblocks. My reference was a photo on the Wet Canvas site (thanks!).
P.S. I fixed the blog so that now anyone can leave a comment!

Let Him Lie

Well, last night was the reception for the critter show, "Great & Small; Works on Paper." Not a lot of people showed up, maybe due to the snow, but the ones that did were enthusiastic about the prints (THANK YOU!!!). This dog print is a multi-block woodcut of Patches, our ancient dog, who really does sleep a lot. He's a great model, almost like a still life.....

Emergency Print

So, late on Friday I discovered that I should have mailed a bunch of prints for an exchange several weeks ago. I got out my flower photos from last summer, did a drawing, cut a woodblock and printed more than a dozen "Magnolia"s. I mailed them out today, not knowing whether or not they'd be rejected, as I couldn't get the coordinator on the phone. One thing in my favor (but not anyone else's!) is that many others also have not yet sent their prints, according to the website. Whew! For those interested in details, the image is about 3 3/4" x 3 1/2", printed in olive green oil-based ink on Rives lightweight paper.

Tarantula

This is another woodcut that's in the print show that's now hanging. A friend took a photo of this spider in the Nevada desert and let me use it as a reference (thanks, Bruce!) The image is 6" x 8", printed on banana paper, though, strictly speaking, this isn't the kind of tarantula that Harry Belafonte would have found in his bananas. It's kinda creepy, but it was fun to do, especially the watercolor on the spider's body.

Black Cat

Here's another print that will be in the upcoming "critter" show. I did a woodcut of the country store down the road, but especially liked a part of it that included the picnic table. I cut another block of just that part, but added a cat in the shadows. This watercolor-with-woodcut stuff is really fun!
P.S. Even though this print looks bigger than the butterfly, it's only 6" x 4"; the butterfly print is 11" x 6".

Another Critter: "Queen"

This is a woodcut, printed with a press on Rives BFK, to which I've added watercolor. The image is from a photo I took late last summer at Shaker Village in Canterbury, NH. The gardens were in beautiful full bloom and butterflies were everywhere. After a little research, I discovered that the difference between a male and female Monarch is shown by the male's scent gland on each of his hind wings. This butterfly didn't have them, so she's the queen. Both the black and white and color versions will be in the critter show, which opens on November 19.

Fall

It's about time I posted something new. I've been goofing off, painting and enjoying the fabulous fall colors. Here's a sample.

Printmaking Experiment

Last week, I took a workshop in solarplate etching at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio. This is a method of etching using polymer plates that uses no acid or other chemicals to etch the plate. In preparing for the workshop, I did a drawing I hated, so, in desperation, I picked some leaves from the yard, scanned them into Photoshop and "messed around" with them until I got an image that looked OK. After a couple of tries, I ended up with this print that started with a few dandelion leaves. I printed the whole plate with yellow ochre first, then printed just the leaf area again with black. The registration, amazingly, worked perfectly; I just plonked the plate down over the printed yellow image by eye. The image is a bit odd, I'll admit, but I loved the dark, velvety black contrasted with the almost-shiny yellow. I'll be doing more experimenting with solarplate over the winter. Right now, I have to think about printing and framing for the critter show.

...and now for something completely different...

This photo is one of many I took on a trip to New Mexico a few years back, before I went digital. You'll no doubt recognize it as the back of the church at Ranchos de Taos, as it's been painted by many artists, including Georgia O'Keeffe (and me, too). The dirt pile is there because the church community was getting ready to put on -by hand, literally- the annual coat of adobe. I liked this view because the church is usually surrounded by vehicles; they were cleared out for the work.

Critters Coming

My friend Judy and I are getting ready to do a show of works on paper in November. She'll have mostly etchings; I'll have mostly woodcuts. All the art will be of, about, or even by (!!) animals of various sorts. It's been fun getting ready for this! I'll give you a sneak peek of a little print I did last year for an exchange with other printmakers, called "Mouse" (original title, huh?). The background is part of an unfinished watercolor. Both the outline and the texture of the mouse were done with linoleum cuts. I burnished the filler just with my fingers to get that texture, which came from the rough paper. The outline was done with my ancient wooden tool I call a spoonula because it's halfway between a spoon and a spatula. I can press much harder with it, so the outline is flatter black. It's only the beginning....

A Dose of Reality

Most of the time, I'm trying to get more simplified and abstract in my painting and printmaking, but sometimes it's fun to simply paint what's there. Plus, it's easier, not so much thinking and agonizing about what to leave out. This little (about 5" x 8") watercolor was one of those times. It was painted from a photo I took near Salmon River in Nova Scotia. It made a pretty good greeting card; printed on to rough paper, it looked close to a "real" watercolor.

Early Morning, Cowdrey's Country Store

Yesterday, I was out painting with about 15 other New Hampshire painters as part of the International Plein Air Painters annual "paintout." I'll post my one painting as soon as it's either dry enough to scan or the weather cooperates for a photo op. We've had a lot of much-needed rain in the last 24 hours. In the meantime, here's the woodcut print in the title. It's 6" x 8," oil-based inks on mulberry paper, and was done as part of an exchange with other printmakers. The theme was "hometown structure," but I stretched the idea a bit, as the store is just across the town line. I used my artistic license to move Mount Kearsarge a little to the right so that it could be seen beyond the buildings. To get the reference photo, I went down the road one day at 4:30 a.m. in order to capture the shadows as the sun rose. Yaaaawn.....

Sunflower

This is that little sunflower that disappeared yesterday! It's oil on Raymar canvas panel, 8" x 6", painted at Canterbury Shaker Village. Our NH Plein Air group painted at the village many times last year and had a very successful show there at the end of the summer.

A Little One

Here's a little oil-on-panel painting, 8" x 6", painted from life. I got the pepper from the fridge. (Yes, I edited this post; I'll put the other painting up tomorrow in a new post.)

Sailors' Delight

This is the last of the three woodcuts that were in the Land on Paper show. This one was actually done first, then it inspired the Fair Warning print. Just in case you've never heard it, the old-time sailors' weather report is this little rhyme: "Red sky in the morning is a sailor's fair warning; red sky at night is a sailor's delight."

Reduction Print

Here's "Storm," another of the prints in the Land on Paper show, also a reduction woodcut. This one's bigger, 6" x 8". There are five layers of oil-based ink, starting with the lightest yellow and finishing with the darkest gray. One thing I didn't anticipate was the way the previous layers sometimes showed through, but I ended up liking it.

New news

This little print, "Starry Night," about 2.5" x 2.5," is in a show at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction, VT, called "Land on Paper." It's a reduction woodcut, which means that part of the image is cut away after each color is printed, leaving almost nothing on the block at the end. Fun and a bit dangerous! The edition of a reduction woodcut is always limited; this one has ten, two of which have sold. Two other prints are in this show; I'll post them soon. Almost forgot to tell you: the "stars" were made by pushing a Philips-head screwdriver into the wood to different depths.

First News

Hi, family, friends and generic bloggers! I've been writing the Generic News off and on for years and have decided that a blog is the best way to do this, now that it's the 21st century (OK, I'm 7 years behind!). I'll be posting a bit of news that's mostly related to art, plus some pics of paintings and prints. Enjoy!
"Fair Warning," woodcut with rainbow roll.