pictures of already mentioned projects

the business card box

 black velvet lining

 with the lid on it looks good, but sticks. Any suggestions on how to fix this problem?

 The new watercolor chart (I actually only have 30+ squares left out of the 225)

 The old watercolor chart, which was inaccurate because I didn't mix my colors strong enough

 The Astronaut couple, part way through carving

 The original sketch. I ended up making the space traveler in the foreground larger, and opting out of the heart shadow for now.

 The inked block, and some of the cards

 my ity-bity print shop

 I get so immersed in printing that I don't always clean off my block as often as I should- this has lead to prints where the shape of the boot kicking up looks like a lunar shadow instead.

  Experimented with different colors and multiple layers of different colored prints- the white ink over black is really quite lovely (lower left corner)

The text on this block measures 1.25 by 1.25 inches. (Yes, I am crazy, and it only took about 7 minutes per character...)

 

I used the leftover ink to color some paper and illustration board I had- the roller made the surface very interesting, so hopefully I might start working some kids from my new photo book into these moody places. 

So, what do you guys think?

Projects from 2010 that didn't get blog credit until now

Rabbit skin glue experiment papers in a triptych frame

A thank you painting of a loon for my dear aunt, watercolor, color pencil and gouache on illustration board

 A collage thanksgiving postcard for a friend. The texts reads "gobble gobble" at the top and "heh heh" at the bottom.

This was the 2nd year that I've made holiday lino cut cards. The two lino cuts were carved on the same block, which made the edges more fragile than I like. The Frontier Mother and Child was inspired by a photo of women and children in Time Life: The Old West: The Women- on of my favorite sources for reference. I drew the image on the block and carved it out. The Lunar Mother and Child was carved a week or two after the frontier one. It started with a more complicated and geometric boarder, and I wanted to do something challenging and fun. Abstracting the spacesuits and lunar landing was a major highlight of the past few months art wise.

 

test runs of the blocks- I love how crisp they are in the beginning!

I sold a dozen Lunar cards to Lola Home which was very exciting. I haven't had a chance to stop by and ask if they sold well, but these are the ones I have left.

 Playing with the ink application was fun and a lot less stressful than planing a painting's color and compositions. I'm beginning to understand the thrills of printmaking, and feel more regret for not taking more print classes when I was in school.

 I love how over the time the ink stays on the block and it becomes a singular distinctive piece that creates multiples.

 I posted a few of these cards on TroubleFox, the Etsy shop Stephy and I are working on. Right now we're using this quick drawing of a fox as the profile pic.

 

 

 I've been covering this board with black masking tape salvaged from Devin DeKing's Senior show. I have two large plastic bags that have fused around the tape (14 roll's worth I think) and I like the challenge of untangling it. Devin is also one of my dearest friends- on a girl talk and a "let's get messy and make something" level. She's a solid source of inspiration and just as enthusiastic and in love with rabbit skin glue as I am. Devin and I also share the same madness for time-consuming and body effecting work. Will the work and its process make us ache, our joints stiff, dye our skin, bother the prissy and make our lazy art peers look bad? Then we will revel in it.
Devin has been teaching English to naughty and Über adorable elementary school students in Japan for most of the year. I miss her dearly, and this project has morphed into an expression of that removed excitement and missed kinship; it is slow, because it takes time and because I'm savoring it. I think eventually I will make this a canvas for a rabbit skin glue painting, because I know all the crannies and layers are begging for the ooze and sediment.

christmas cards

During an an afternoon before work I decided to make prints off a lino block I have been fiddling with since the summer. I cut a few cards from some nicer sketchbook paper I had around and played with how I applied the ink onto the block. Here are 2 of 6 cards I ended up making.













I like the one of the left the best, because the halo shape came out looking like the moon. The one on the right is blurry and a little mysterious, but it didn't turn out as eerie as another one that I've already given away.

A few days before I was bored and decided to make a stencil of a reindeer to go over the large rainbow flag outside of our house. These are the mock-up sketches I made for it. The bottom one I painted with metallic paint  and turned into a postcard.

I ended up with two usable images so I put one up inside the house and one outside. They're a little silly and look more like cows parading as reindeer but I am quite fond of them both. I really enjoyed exaggerating the antlers but found it challenging to think of the positive and negative spaces in terms of what would actually work as a cut-out. Maybe I'll try to work on cut-outs  more often...