Fatter Fatness!

      It has been a little while since I've posted! I love blogging and documentation but sometimes it does get in the way of making work.  I have a show in April so I made the decision to skip a lot of blogging and get to the making part!  Still had my camera handy but only picked it up when I felt things were well underway and my progress is going good.
    The latest work I have completed is dedicated to my wonderful muse, Fatter Fat Toad!  You can read more about her here on my other blog:

Fatter Fat Toad in the Journey to Middle Earth

      The Chinese consider toads to be very auspicious and I really enjoyed Fatter Fat's company whether or not she brought me money.  She brought me plenty of joy!  I always wanted to carve a block to remember her by.  It's been a year or so since I've seen her.  I started with pictures I took of her in her favorite place next to porch steps. I picked out one of my favorites that I took of her and posted on my blogspot about her. She didn't like the camera and would puff herself up when I took photos so that she looked like a giant disk of warty clay! I liked the one of her head slightly turned to face the camera as she lay puffed up with her legs tucked under her. It showed off her warts and stripes.  After she endured my irritating camera I would reward her with worms from my worm composter.  This was maybe the secret to why she stayed around so much.

      I sketched from this and several others.  (The smaller sketches are from other smaller toads that have visited the house.)  After roughing in her dimensions and markings, I transferred the sketch to a piece of battleship gray linoleum and went about carving.  For some reason, it was hard to initially carve this work.  I don't know if it was because I was worried that I'd somehow screw up or that this was the first time in a long time that I had carved battleship gray linoleum.  Usually, I work with the golden hued (softer) stuff.  I knew I'd like the gray material because it would hold more detail but somehow it was hard to just get started. I noticed myself avoiding her face so I decided to approach the carving through the markings in her flank. In hind sight, I think I was afraid of making an error in carving her face.

As I progressed I did something I never do when carving linoleum but may start doing. I took a black magic marker and colored over the remaining surface to get a good visual on what was going to print. I've never needed to do that before but for some reason this time around it was a good aid to help me balance tones throughout the rest of the piece.

      As I began closing in on her head it was becoming less of a hassle to begin working on her face because now I had a "guide map" of sorts to work with. I could match the texture and colors in her face to the textures and colors in her body without second guessing because I could already see how they will look.

Once the carving was finished, I mounted it on a piece of plywood with carpet tape to make it type high on my vandercook printing press. The printing was a real treat and Fatter Fat must have been a real good omen because I suffered no set backs or issues during printing. I printed her up in an oil based ink made by Graphic Chemical called Antiquarian Black. It is supposed to hearken back to the early period when books were printed and it does have a warm rich tone that is very comfortable with my soft fibrous paper. I chose to photograph the final print rather than scan it so that the morning light would bounce off the edges of he impression and you can see how it is slightly debossed into the paper. Now all I have to do is sign and edition!

Dragonflies and Damselflies

   The holidays have passed and with them the memories of all we shared this season: kinship, gifts, flu viruses. . . 'Tis the season!
In celebration of ushering in the new this year, I'm starting my first post with some photos documenting a new painting I'm working on. I always enjoyed the works of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement artisans as well as works from the Art Deco period. Illustrations in books that looked like woodblock prints always thrilled me. Don't get me started on how much I loved Aubrey Beardsley. Later on down the road of life I'm finding out my fascination stems from the inspiration these artisans took in soaking up and processing their natural surroundings and then imbuing their everyday life and the objects that surrounded them with the spirit of that natural world. How wonderful, I began to think, it would be to practice the same habit with plants, animals, and landscape features of my OWN surroundings. This new body of work will my made with that concept in mind. This first endeavor has been REALLY educational.

I went boating down the Rivanna River a few times this summer with my friends.  On one occasion I borrowed a sit on top kayak and  I remember a very distinct experience. The sit on top version was effortless and allowed me to drift down the river with relative ease. I could take in my surroundings and even sketch if I wished. I was amused at the insects that surrounded the wake of the boat and at times I was so still that multiple dragonflies would light on my skin and ride with me while water striders would skim my wake as we drifted down river. (I will be investing in a sit on top in the near future!)
I began the painting featured above in inspiration of that moment in time. There are a few varieties of dragonfly that stuck out in my mind but I did not know their names and I had not brought a camera with me (or a sketch book!) to document. I set about internet surfing and learned a few things. Two of the three varieties that stuck in my mind were not dragonflies but damselflies. I remember Ebony Jewel Wing Damselflies and Bluets from the creek in my back yard. I also remember large true dragonflies by the name of Common White Tail Dragonflies. I sprinkled these over a peppering of Water Striders with a background of an aquatic weed called Water Star Grass. This was the river weed that I fell so much in love with as it reminded me of a woman's hair softly listing back and forth in the currents.

I started drawing the damselflies and rendered first the Bluets. Their wings were paddle shaped and are pretty crystal clear except for one cell dyed black. It was very mesmerizing to mimic the pattern that the veins in their wings take it was almost like drawing cascading lightening.

Next came the Ebony Jewel Wing Damselflies. When painted, these insects wings will be entirely black but I want to use varying shades of black and charcoal to let the vein pattern show through. Their wings are shaped more like rudders and are more robust than the Bluets.

And lastly, All hail the power of the Common White Tail Dragonfly for he hath brought down the artist with a mighty blow! When I first rendered this insect I thought, This should be the quickest one to draw because a good portion of each wing is dedicated to an opaque black pigment. This lasted until I began to render the wings in the stained glass tile pattern that is evident in their biology. Teeny tiny little cells lined up patiently next to each other in beautifully, minute, intricate detail. I had to break out the swing arm magnifying glass because my eyes were becoming so tired.

Mostly because I could only dedicate 1 to 2 hours of my day to this piece before I had to get ready for work, working on this solitary dragonfly has taken about a week.

But today is Saturday and I finally finish this single dragonfly. Perhaps Sunday will bring at least half of the last dragonfly. I hope to dedicate at least part of the day to sharpening my block carving knives as I still have a crayfish in need of a new life as a key block!

Lana won't be at the Market this Saturday!

Sadness!  Lana is not going to be at the Charlottesville Holiday Market this Saturday the 18th!  I've finally managed to pick up some of the crud that everyone's been infected with.  Bleh.  I guess it was bound to happen at some point or another.  I'm sad that I will miss out on the hand made birdhouses, yarn, mittens, scarves, wreaths, brooms, pottery, candy, sausages, and empanadas!  You guys can go and get in on the last of all these locally made goodies, though!

More fun prints and handmade stamp goodness this Saturday!

Yep, we're going to get out in it again this Saturday at the Charlottesville Holiday Market!  There is the addition of my friend Jenny Swab who crafts these wonderful stuffed animals out of socks, gloves, and old sweaters.  I'm particularly fond of her Glove Octopus stuffed animals!  I will still be featuring my hand carved Cork Stamps and prints of my Farm People along with Holiday Cards and some other prints that I do.  There will lots of other wonderful goodies about so come on down and don't miss out!

Exchange #47 Spoiler Alert!

I'm killing two birds with this stone. I have a river themed show in April and also this exchange due so I thought I would combine the two. In my river themed show, I want to attempt to glorify our local Chesapeake Watershed/Appalachian flora and fauna to the extent that the Arts and Crafts printers glorified European and Medieval themes. I knew I wanted to do a print of a crayfish but wasn't exactly sure of how it would translate. This end sketch isn't exactly the vision I initially had but I can always sketch more. For now, I think this is lovely little arrangement. When I first began sketching I rendered numerous crayfish atop rocks in a creek with their claws raised in the air. I sat back and the image seemed idiotic to me. Having played in creeks I knew they usually hid under rocks and were loners. This final arrangement seems to do more justice to the truth than anything else. I wouldn't mind a quiet sunny afternoon under a stone with the water softly rushing by as I flicked my antennae back and forth. I intend to have a broken border to add some interest and am hoping to include some bokashi and maybe other surimono techniques. We'll see. For now this is a good start.

2010 Charlottesville Holiday Market

So, the Charlottesville Holiday Market will begin this Saturday! I will be there on the dates and times listed in space #52. I'm excited to see how it turns out as it is now in the Farmer's Market Space instead of down in front of the Amphitheater. There is room for upwards of 100 crafts persons so I'm sure there is going to be a good selection of things. There is also an arts and crafts show going on in the Ice Park Space so this Saturday is turning out to be a real Downtown Arts Show!

Irons in the Fire

The Raucous Auction at the VABC sure lights a fire in one's soul to get printing again! Everyone's enthusiasm and awe at the different works up for auction is infectious so I pretty much stayed at my drafting table today. For weeks (and maybe months) I've been only furtively creating things. It was mostly journaling and note writing. That's a good practice but if you did that nonstop you'll never make anything. So, today I took up the torch and set out on a journey to build the foundations of three projects that take priority on my list of "to-do".
Above is the mock up for the newest (and first that I am participating in) VABC group project. The project is called "Indulgences" and the finished product will be a receipt book full of tickets for different indulgences. I previewed the design that will be printed on the back of each ticket.  Frank Riccio has designed for us an intricately beautiful image and it rocks the house! Garrett Queen has worked up the design format that we will be working in and did a perforation along one side on the sample and I'm really excited! It looks like a legitimate contract! The preview image was a 20% off coupon for purgatory. I've got something a bit more cynical in mind for mine. As you can read, it's a ticket to "The Big Sleep" which is a universal product of "The Big Industries", headed up by the Devil. I chose the receipt side to represent the terms of contract. This is just a mock up within the perimeters of the page. I typed everything out in photoshop and then printed it out to arrange on the real thing. There will be a little bit of wiggle room designed in but I wanted to get a general feel of how the sorts will fit when ready for print. I've decided I will design and hand carve the title at the top and the titles of each of the "Big Industries" with an image integrated in each title to represent the company. I'm going to print it in the sootiest black I can find.  I already have bone black and antiquarian black from Graphic Chemical. Those are two good contenders I think.  The imagery will be gritty and graphic and the "Big Company" titles will be the only parts of the ticket to have any color. I can't wait!!

The next project I worked on was my concept for a business card. Up until now, I've been designing images online and ordering cards from Overnightprints.com. They did my post cards for the show in July and I was none too happy. Admittedly, I should've ordered them earlier so that if there was an issue I could've had them redone but it was too little too late. I can understand bad design but the registration in the colors was off so it was jarring to look at and it really irritated me.
I've stayed away from printing my own business cards for two reasons. The first reason is business cards are small and tedious so printing each one is a pain in the ass. The answer to that is to set enough type to print a whole page and then cut them down to size afterwards but it is just as tedious to justify and measure the type for a whole page as it is to print little cards one at a time. Reason number two lies in the print itself. I kind of have a hang up on printing cards because the line gets blurred between "craft" and "fine art". The process is the same but the philosophy is different. One wouldn't think twice about tossing out a card but there is no way you would part with a "fine art print". So, I sat down and had a long and hard grapple over what to do. In the end I decided that if I love printmaking and am going to continue doing it, a card representing what I do would be the best way to go about advertising myself. I set about designing a template for a woodblock that is partitioned into "card sized" images. I'll carve these out and run them off in different colors. When I hand out these cards I will now be giving away tiny prints that people will hopefully enjoy. I'm hoping it will make a better impression and maybe people will want to follow what I'm doing. We'll see.  Sorry, the image is a tad crappy.  The follow up scans should be better.

Lastly, I finally started work on Baren Forum's Exchange #47. This is an open exchange of prints with Baren Forum members. The particular one I joined is relegated to the Moku Hanga technique and has a format of roughly 13"x 6". I have a show coming up in April on river themes so I chose the Chowanoke Crayfish as subject material. At first I designed it as a vertical orientation with a creek flowing down over various stones and about 6 crayfish perched atop with their claws lifted in the air as if dancing in the wind. I sat back and looked at it and it appeared severely Disney-ish to me. I totally erased every scrap of the image and went to a horizontal orientation. I know first hand that crayfish live under rocks and you have to carefully overturn them in a stream bed to find the little guys. I drew some stones and one with a lip that overhung. A single crayfish fit nicely under there. Wabi-sabi. The stone orientation and single crayfish feels more real to me. For the carving and printing I will take liberty with the water. I've really been into researching the Arts and Crafts movement lately and I'd like the give the water a glittering Gustave Klimt feel. We'll see what happens soon!  Again, crappy photo.  Pencil sketches never really translate well.