I spent last weekend teaching at the North Cascades Institute's Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake. Seattle City Light's Diablo Dam has been spilling since March because of all the snow and rain this winter and spring. What a sight-- the power of it thrills as you stand beside it. The students and I worked on block printing with oil-based inks and watercolor and the art produced was beautiful!
I just received my newly published work from Pomegranate Communications, including the Birds Coloring book, Trees boxed notecard set and a new notecard of the Black-crowned Night Heron. I'll include photos of all the art in coming days. You can order from the website and also find the work in local museum shops, nature shops and gift stores. The cover image was inspired by a trip I took to Pt. Lobos, south of Monterey, California. I saw the great egret there, amidst California poppies and yarrow. It was a stunning and beautiful vision, and I felt determined to make a print to honor the experience.
I've been working on prints in the last couple of months and today I am sharing two of the new ones. I've posted photos of long-billed dowitchers in the past after seeing them at Magnuson Park wetlands and at other shore areas in Washington. The bills (absurdly long) are made for probing deep into the mud, and their elegant legs carry them into shallow water. I've created a watercolor, a block print and now most recently an etching. I share them here. I love variations on a theme in music (Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Mozart's Twinke Variations, etc.)--and one of my favorite poems is Wallace Stevens's Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. I'm only up to three variations on the dowitcher, but perhaps more may come later! I printed the block print on Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolor paper, with Charbonnel soft black ink, then hand-tinted it with watercolors. I used Magnani Pescia blue paper for the etching, and for the ink color mixed Charbonnel soft black with ultramarine blue. The block print expresses the bold contours of the bird, while the etching emphasizes the elegance of it, and merges the bird into its surroundings. Both, I hope, convey some sense of my delight in this wonderful creature.
This morning before heading out to teach I wanted to be sure to share some of the work students created in the block printing class yesterday at Daniel Smith Artists' Materials in Seattle. It amazes me what people come up with in such a short class! My photos were taken quickly at the end of our class (and some folks left early so I didn't get all the great prints here) so edges are a little out of whack, but you still get the idea!
I just finished a print that was inspired by a trip earlier this winter up to the Skagit Valley. Swans were feeding in the fields with Three Fingers Peak and Whitehorse Mountain in the background. I'll be teaching block printing this Sunday, March 5 at Daniel Smith.
In preparation for the block printing workshop I offered at Daniel Smith a couple of weeks ago (and in anticipation of the next workshop on March 5), I created a few new prints. Today I am sharing the Cedars. I have walked on the Trail of the Cedars in North Cascades National Park just outside of Newhalem, Washington many times, and these trees are my favorites, a group that established themselves on a nurse log long ago. I call this print Cedars Colonnade. The warm tones of the row of trunks reminds me of the arcades and colonnades of Bologna, Italy, which we visited a few years ago.
I had to share what Lisa Tsang came up with in our workshop on Sunday...so perfect! She created an origami "pussy hat" to place on the head of her kokeshi block print! Thanks so much for sharing, Lisa!
Yesterday I taught a block printing workshop at the Seattle Daniel Smith store and the 10 very engaged and committed students created some delightful prints--I was very pleased at how well the materials worked and to see the students able to complete their creations in one short day. It was a very impressive group of artists! Thanks to each of you for joining me! I will look forward to teaching this workshop again on Sunday, March 5th. You can register by calling (206) 223-9599. Here you can see how the prints looked in color and in black and white.
I've been preparing for block printing workshops at Daniel Smith by creating new prints. This one is not one of the newest, but I thought I would post it before winter slipped away, as it a celebration of winter. It's going to be released next summer as a 2017 holiday card by Pomegranate Communications. It will be the cover of a boxed set; in coming days I will share other new print images. We've added an additional workshop date at Daniel Smith because the first block printing workshop filled; last Saturday we had a great time at the block printing demonstration--thanks to everyone who came. I'll be teaching tomorrow at the Seattle store (that workshop filled, though there is a waitlist and you can always join it, as people do cancel at the last minute), and we've added one more workshop for Sunday, March 5. You can register by calling the store at (206) 223-9599.
Next Saturday I'll be offering a demonstration at the Seattle Daniel Smith store from 11am to 12:30pm on block printing with oil-based inks and watercolor. This is the method I use to create the calendars and cards published by Pomegranate Communications. I always enjoy meeting people at these demonstrations--I learn something every time. We scheduled a workshop for January 22nd, which is now full, so we added another session for the waiting list and other interested participants: that one will take place on Sunday, March 5th. The time is 10:30 to 4:30, and the cost is $100. Please email if you have any questions, or call Daniel Smith at (206) 223-9599. I'm having alot of fun preparing for this demo, with a couple of new prints under way: some ancient cedars and a long-billed dowitcher. The print pictured here is a white-faced ibis, a remarkable bird that I saw last May at the Klamath Wildlife Refuge. Hope to see you at the demo!