AzureGrackle

In class on Monday afternoon I worked on my first ever registered print, simple barn with several layers of color. In the first photo, the few details that I wanted to be white are carved out of the 9" x 12" woodblock. The pencil lines for the outline of the barn showed through and did transfer a little, but because I'm going to put darker ink over that part, I didn't worry about it.

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Next you can see some of the registration method used. On a sheet of newsprint I drew a long horizontal line, a shorter vertical line intersecting it and a mark to the left of the vertical line. Then I line up the block against the vertical line and trace its full outline so I know where to place it again when I come back to print more colors. On the back of the paper another horizontal line is drawn to line up with the line drawn on the news print.

Finally, the newsprint is put under a piece of glass and the printing paper taped to it to form a hinge against the third small vertical mark. This way your paper will also line up properly for subsequent layers.

You can also see my burnishing spoon and the light blue layer printed on the paper.

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Yup, yup... time to update. I went to the Craft Fair last Saturday and did well! It was chilly at 7:30 in the morning as I arrived to set up, but a few minutes of tent wrangling and table lugging and I was toasty warm. Fortunately my tent sat in the sun until 2pm or so. I brought my camera to take pictures of the new black wall set-up for displaying prints, but neglected to put the memory card back in it. My friend Laurie walked over with her daughter and camera and took a few shots for me, but I haven't seen them yet. Rambling... I know.

So there were about 70 vendors inside and out. A beautiful day and a decent turn-out. It wasn't quite as busy as I had hoped, but I still sold 8 prints and a bunch of blank cards. Being able to take credit cards really helps those impulse shoppers. So over all, a successful day.

Afterwards I packed up, got fed up by traffic and stopped by Laurie's for dinner. She fed me roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and her husband made killer chocolate milkshakes. Artist yes, starving no.

This is a photo taken in the Indigenous Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio. Responding to their call for art, I sent 13 matted prints off a couple weeks ago to their Halloween Hullabaloo art show. I'm pretty pleased with how they look with all the other Halloween-y stuff. The local gravestones have been a great source of inspiration to me and I think it may be time to go on another excursion to find more good ones. To me, they carry a connection to history, to place and family (even if it's not my family). They are sad and quiet, lamenting and full of love.

On a non-art subject, I just have to share this picture of the animals I am Auntie to, Dusty and Twinkle.

I've wanted to get some grid wall pieces to be able to hang up some framed pieces or matted pieces at shows. I've found places online that sell them, but haven't looked into where I might get some locally. However, yesterday I went to Pier One just to look around and see with what I might be able to improvise. I found this:

It is about 5 feet tall, painted black wood and was described as a "decorative wall panel". Personally, I don't want it on my wall since it reminds me of the Brady Bunch house. But, I can carry it myself and fit it in my car. So this Saturday, when I'm at my last outdoor fair of the year, I'm going to attach it to the tent leg with zip ties and use it as an art display. I figure I can clip matted prints to it with big black paper clips and if I want to get fancy, I can hammer a picture hook or two into it. I'm not sure I'm ready to do that yet since I don't know how sturdy the wood is and if it might split. But at least I have something I like, I can use, and will show off my work better than having it all sit in bins on a table.

This is a piece of blond pine I carved on Monday afternoon during my woodblock class. I was trying too hard to think of something to carve - an object, a scene - composition became forced and sketches just all around bad. So I turned my stool and looked out the window. Gravel, a drain and one red Japanese maple leaf. A quick sketch and here it is.

I used a photocopy transfer method to get the sketch onto the block. Photocopied my sketch and made sure the lightness scale was on the darkest setting to get the most toner. Then place the copy face down on the block, quickly brush the back of the paper with acetone and run it through a press for transfer. It works best with lots of toner, but it gave me enough to fill in the rest of the image by hand before starting to carve.

The top half will be grasses but I haven't decided whether the carved lines will be the grass, or the remaining wood. I just know I want that area to have a lot of white space in it since the bottom half of gravel is a lot of black space. I'm using different shaped gouges to make the gravel marks, and use the density of marks to make shadow and light. We'll see how it looks when I do a proof after the grass has been carved.

Jan of Poppytalk blog fame has put together a fabulous virtual street market, Poppytalk Handmade. Check out what a great job she did with my submitted prints. And she did this for 75 design artists. Brava!

I also realize it has been a while since I updated things here. Somehow September just disappeared on me. Providence Open Market, new Trainscape show at DeCordova, Jellybeans Art Blog feature, preparing for Harvest Craft Festival in Sudbury, Mass. on Oct. 13th and the ArtSpace Maynard Holiday Art Sale on November 30th - December 2nd. It's enough to make your head spin, but looking at this list of events makes me feel good about my progess too.

Plus, I started a woodblock class a couple weeks ago. So far, it's a really good class that I hope will help fill in a lot of the gaps in my woodcut education. Specifically registration. I never learned how and I want to know what I'm doing so I can break the rules with intention. This week I was supposed to have carved a piece of blond pine for class, but since it starts in two hours and I haven't done a thing yet, I don't think my homework will be done today. Ah well.

The time I could have used for the project this week, instead went to celebrating PapaGrackle's 65th birthday! I went to a birthday dinner at my parents' house on Saturday night. We had a lovely piece of swordfish and I made some spinach with sauteed pine nuts, garlic and onion to go with it. Then we finished with the traditional birthday mince pie and whipped cream. Yum.... food coma followed shortly thereafter.