Finished Key Block

Ahhhhhhhhh, finished with the key block. I still have to pull some proofs and carve the color blocks as well as dig out the kento, but I'll save you guys the agony of those superflous posts. My little Zinc medicine cabinet is finished. I flipped the image in photoshop so you could see what it would look like printed. Let me tell you, after a few weeks of carving, that messes with you head. When I flipped it, momentarily I couldn't tell if the letters were backwards or forwards. I also thought I had drawn the side objects on the other respective sides. Printmaking is a little disorienting in that respect. Anyways, that's one monkey off my back. I hope to pull a proof of the squid too so I can start some prints of him. I have to build a special registration board for that one as I carved all the way to the edges of the block.
Things have been a little nutzo in my little corner of the world as I gear up for a studio move and job change. I'd be lying if I said it didn't scare me. Oh well, here goes nothing.....

Zinc Bottles and Antique shopping

Ha, ha!! The Zincy Goodness is not done yet! Okay, as I niddle my way outwards, you can see that it's an old medicine bottle. I've got more to do but I enjoy how the glass came out. Also, my signiture has been carved into the cork in the top of the bottle. I had a lot of fun wittling out all the little reflections in the glass.
Yesterday, my sister and I took mom out for early mother's day. We stopped into an antique store and wandered for a good couple of hours. I found an old spring loaded paper roller with tear bar for 20.00 and it just so happens that I need one for newsprint rolls. Score! I also found a huge spool of cotton twine like we used to keep in our old general store for 3.00. That will come in handy for tying up type forms and pamphlet bindings. I love shopping.

More Zinc

Okay, so I'll make up for my severe blog neglect by posting another image of my Zinc block since it's coming along so nicely. The zen thing about woodblock carving is that you get lost in the grain as you carve and the sap marks seem to flow like water as you carve.

Been a while

So, as usual, chaos has insued to insure my lapse in blogging. Oh well, I'll get settled one way or another. Here is a scan of some of the carving for the Periodic Table Print Exchange going on with some Etsy printers. Don't worry. It will get done. I got the two elements Zinc and Seaborgium. I am doing an old medicine cabinet styled print of the medicinal properties of Zinc. It is used to this day to cure skin burns and wounds and is taken as lozenges to help the body get over the common cold. Studies show that animals and plants that were denied Zinc in their developmental stages were stunted in growth.
As for Seaborgium, lord, that's another issue all together. There is little known about the substance as it is currently generated in particle accelerators and briefly at that. I think I'll do some sort of imagery about its theoretical valence shell. We'll see.