In the meantime....

While I'm working on getting photos of paintings, here's a casual photo of a reduction woodcut done for a Baren print exchange. It's called "Barney at the Beach" and is done from a photo I took on a freezing cold, windy day in November. A man was throwing a ball for his two dogs, who ran again and again into the surf to get it, not minding the frigid water. The image is 10" x 7" and is really rectangular. The odd shape is because I took the pic while the print is still hanging to dry. I wish it would hurry up; it's supposed to be in the mail today! 

The Baren forum is an online group of printmakers who exchange original relief prints and information on techniques, ideas, sources, etc. It's a great group! They're at: http://www.barenforum.org/. 

About Time

It's been awhile, plus those hornworms are pretty ugly, so here goes with something I hope is better. I have a few things in McGowan Fine Art's Love, Lust & Desire show; here are two of them. Backside Bouquet is a small (8" x 8") oil on panel of a flower arrangement that was on the table at a friend's wedding. I had painted the same flowers from the front with a lighter background earlier, thus the odd title. The other painting is a close-up watercolor (about 10" x 7") of an amaryllis I have that has bloomed about 12 years in a row. Right now, it's in sleep mode. One of my prints is in this year's Prints of the Year show. Info on both shows is at right. One of my New Year resolutions is to -um- blog more often. In a couple of days, I'm off for a few days of painting the snow in Vermont. I'll post again when I get back. Really!

Illawarra Plum

This is a reduction woodcut that I did for a print exchange. It's oil-based ink on mulberry, 8" x 6" and has colored pencil added for the plums. I'm not completely happy with the green; in retrospect I would have made it lighter. The plant is native to Australia; I used Internet references and made up my version of it. 

Zucchini

Back to printmaking- Here's a woodcut done for a food alphabet exchange: it's 6" x 8", water-based inks on Rives lightweight paper. For the background, I transferred my drawing onto an uncut block, then applied plain water to the areas I wanted lighter. I rolled it with light green ink, then added a bit of yellow ink to the flower. After printing about 30 of the background, I printed the "key block" in dark green on top. I tried to make it not-too-obvious, so that you'd have to look an extra second to see the little zucchini. This was a fun exchange!

Calling Glooscap

Here's another almost-illustration print, done for an exchange. The theme was "Mythology," so I chose a Native American story about Glooscap (creator-being) giving the loons their voice. It's titled "Calling Glooscap" and is a woodcut, 4" x 6" oil-based inks on Rives lightweight. It started out as a black and white image, but I added the blue sky, then it looked funny without color in the water, so I cut another block.

Fairy Tale

Recently, I completed a print for an exchange, the subject of which was to be a fairy tale. I picked "The Boy Who Drew Cats," that I'll post below. The print is a woodcut, 8" x 10", printed on Rives lightweight paper. The other pic is my printing setup- you can just make out a squidge of the brown-black ink on the right.
THE BOY WHO DREW CATS a Japanese fairy tale
A farmer and his wife had many children. Their youngest son was small and weak, so they took him to the temple to become a priest. He learned quickly, but drew cats everywhere. The old priest finally said he could not be a priest, though he might be an artist, and sent him away with the advice to avoid large places at night, and keep to small ones. He decided to go to a big temple nearby and ask them to take him on.
The temple was deserted because a goblin had driven the priests away. Warriors who fought against the goblin were never seen again. A light burned at the temple at night, so when the boy arrived, he went in. He saw some big white screens and painted cats on them. Then he went to sleep, but, since the temple was large, he remembered the old priest's advice and found a little cabinet to sleep in. During the night, he heard sounds of fighting. In the morning, the goblin-rat was dead in the middle of the temple, and all the cats he had painted had mouths wet and red from the blood.

"Fried Chicken"

This is one version of my slightly sick pollution joke for the New Year. Though it's a two-block woodcut, I'm calling it a monoprint because I've printed it in several different colors and on different papers, including one on an icky yellowish-green color that I just delivered for the "Prints of the Year: What's New in New Hampshire Printmaking" show (reception Feb 8 in Concord). Have a happy and less-polluted new year!

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.

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....