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.

Plein Air???

One day last week was really sunny, but also cold, so I painted from inside the studio looking out. This little (8" x 6") oil painting "Snowy Sunset," probably doesn't fit into the plein air "rules," but to me it's really no different than painting from inside the car or from on the porch. This is the second-floor view in the same direction as the last little painting. I did three of these studies that day; fun.

"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!

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.....