So Close!

No pun intended but I'm so close I can taste it! I received the deep cocoa colored paper in the mail a few days ago and went straight away to cutting it up into book covers for the hard bound books and jackets for the soft cover books. (Yes, I'm crazy and am printing and binding both!) I carved the cover plate design out of linoleum instead of wood and printed that a week ago. I put my info in lead type and an awesome pilot press decal I got from David Churchman. Those I will attach to the inside of the back cover as a sort of hack collophon. Yesterday, I printed the title pages and end pages. Because I carved the block to perform for both the hard bound books and the soft bound, it was like a three ring circus trying to keep track which orientation was which. It also did not help that I carved the image on the WRONG SIDE of the block!!!! No biggie, I just had some overhang I had to protect against grimy quoins and furniture but an annoyance at myself for a stupid move no less. I'm doing a little tap dance to the print gods in front of my drying rack right now to hasten the drying. Yes, print god tap dances appease the forces that be into pity for an idiot. I snapped a photo of the title block and flipped it in photoshop.

Maru Bake Illness!

I tried to post this to Baren Forum but I've been having some email issues lately with things not getting delivered so I'm throwing this debate open to everyone! I purchased my favorite Maru Bake from Baren Mall and have used it with great success for the past three or four years. I understand that it's only been about five years since my introduction to the Moku Hanga and that my brush has seen me through my learning stages (still learning btw!). The last time I broke the brush out to print my Strawberry Roan edition, I noticed this split in the wood!

I noticed a few months back that the back of the brush was developing a saddle shape slowly but surely so I'm not entirely surprised but I'm wondering if maybe I'm doing something wrong in the care of these brushes or is the life span of 4 to 5 years a good life considering the work they do. One clue I'm guessing is that maybe the hole I drilled for a hanging eyelet (my brushes are hung in the air for good circulation as they dry and are stored there when not in use) held excess fluid during use and cause rot? When printing, after I've soaked the brush a good 10 to 15 minutes (the bristles are suspended in water and the handle usually just bobs), I rest it bristles down on a blotter which inevitably gets damp. This is it's home until I pick it up for printing or wash it out and store it. Also, it has been damp here lately with spring so the humidity could very well be a factor.

Here are a few other images of the back and side of the brush. Maybe you can tell that the back is starting to warp into a saddle shape.

At any rate, I'm going to be working larger for a show I'm scheduled to have next summer in July of 2009 and I'm going to be ordering more Maru Bake anyway. I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for me about prevention or if this is typical.

In other news, for those of you going "Where the hell is this contest she's been making noise about?!?!" Chill. I'm putting the finishing touchs on the sample image. I had to make a whole other one as the original image was too light to photograph and too big to scan! Keep checking! It's coming soon! Also, I'm almost ready to start binding the chocolate books! Yay!

The Strawberry Roan!

The Strawberry Roan has arrived! I am surprised at how well this print run has turned out. This is my first attempt at multiple color blocks and registration on top of a gradation. I had an image in my head of how the colors would turn out and which ones I would choose. Though I chose accordingly, like always, the image in one's mind is always different from the outcome. I actually like the product better! The kirin block project began as a spin off from another project. I was invited to participate in a beastiary making project and had come up with several sketches of different fantastic animals before ultimately deciding on my signet, Harvey. My kirin image was not truly new. I had designed a kirin for a book I was working on called "Murphy's Wife" and the animal struck me as a very entertaining subject. The traditional chinese kirin is usually rendered as being covered in scales with a mane of flames. I wanted to work on trying to design an animal that would in theory be able to exist. To balance out the body of a horse visually, I blended the bone structure of a horse skull and dragon head. Noting how the pelts in the equine world are extremely diverse, I softened the look of koi scales into a dapple effect.
I could have kicked myself when I started printing as I forgot my camera when I printed the salmon colored skin block, the green mane and tail block. Doh! After that, I was tired and went home with the intention of coming back the next day. Well, I didn't make it back and in total, the kozo was damp for two and a half days before I returned to it! I printed the cadmium hooves and horn and then made the executive decision to dry the prints and let them rest. The paper was beginning to shed fibers and I was afraid that the cadmium was going to offset as I stacked them back in the humidor. It turned out to be the right choice. I dampened them again after 3 days and set about making magic!

The colors really complimented each other well and seeing the gradation wick into the paper was real eye candy!

Lastly, I pulled the key block in a plum color.

I like this image of the initial key block print in sumi and the finished color print. The title for this edition struck me when I pulled the first scale pattern gradation off. The color and arrangement reminded me so much of strawberry seeds and there does exist a coloration in horses called "strawberry roan." What better way to celebrate spring?

Chocolate Pages

I printed page images on one side of paper last week and now, this past saturday, I printed the same thing on the other side of the pages. When they are folded and trimmed into signatures for binding, they will read like a journal. I have to carve one more block with a title page and an ending image to finish off the text block. It will be tricky printing those as printing them for hard bound books as well as pamphlet stitch books will be two different processes. I've gotten this far so I guess I'm up for the challenge. After all that, I will carve an image plate for the front of the book and whip those out on my C&P Pilot on some pink paper. I've already sanded the book covers for 10 books so I'm really excited to see what my end result will finally look like. I know I still have a lot of work ahead of me but starting is always the hardest!
In other news, I got a show at the McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville VA on July 2009 so consider yourselves warned! More on that later as I'm am bursting at the seams to tell you that it will be an interactive process on this blog. The resulting works will hopefully reflect the feedback I get throughout my posts and there will even be a constest!
I'm still jogging every day to every other day and am looking forward to reaping the benefits. This is the beginning of week three! I wished I had my camera as yesterday my husband and I caught a dog fight as we were coming back from our jog. We were on our way up the driveway when a murder of crows began cackling and jeering. We looked up to see a red tailed hawk being chased by the crows over our heads. Once they got past our fence line, most of the crows doubled back to our property but two were still in hot persuit. It was entertaining to watch as the hawk clearly had the advantage of tight manuevering in the sky. The crows dove and scratched but always missed. I think he was toying with them. I'm sure exchanges like this will become more common as recently our rabbits have been popping up and the crows do not want to share their territory. We had so many rabbits last year that there were 5 hawks in the tree near our house. So much for my garden......

Sailing Along

Well, here it is! Bill Boys printed up this lovely edition of prints from my block and I had a really good time with this project!

Chocolate Books

We're in action! My plan is to try and teach classes at McGuffey during the Fall and Winter and then to do Festivals and Art Fairs during the Spring and Summer. Before this can even be attempted, one needs products to market. There is a market for fine art and such at these things but it's mostly a pedestrian market where people will more openly part with a bit of cash for a nick-nack. I figure that my letterhead and bound books would fit nicely here. Here is the beginnings of my attempts with the I Love Chocolate Journal. I carved this block of poplar after finding that linoleum didn't offer me the precision I wanted. The design really pushed the limitations of poplar as some of the hand carved letters are as big as the fibers of wood themselves. In the long run, the poplar was a hair more detailed than the linoleum but this is lost when accounting for the fact that the grain prints up. Cherry or Maple you say? Maybe so but Poplar was faster to carve through and easy to get and as far as I know, sustainable to this area. It's an experiment and not altogether unsuccessful. The prints definately have a rustic feel to them. My Vandy is a manual hand roll press and thus there are variations but I am slowly but surely beginning to like variation. I will never, however, call outright mistakes and blunders a "beautiful variant." That's just sacrificing quality. Anyways, after tweaking out some trouble spots, I finally got a good print run going and now I'm eager to carve and print up a title plate! I can't wait to see how it turns out. Even the ink looks like chocolate!

I think now it's time for a change. I originally reserved this blog for fine art and current work posting. There is supposed to be no content featuring my private life/opinions but I've found that those are the arteries to my working process and often the roots of inspiation for me so it's not going to be strictly about work now but you'll see that everything leads there eventually.
So my husband and I have recently gotten back into making beer. He possessed the knowledge to begin with but I naturally enjoy helping because I'm the one who wants a garden and chickens. This is a photo of our brew at the beginning when you must simmer the grains in a muslin sock at a moderated temperature. For those of you who are thinking about learning, go to NorthernBrewer.com. They are the best! Anyways, there is a piece of my heritage in this photo. When we pulled everything out to start brewing (it was kept scrunched up in the corner of a cabinet....bad....bad...bad), we found that his thermometer was broken at the end. Yikes! I love antiques and have a small collection of things my ancestors have used down the generations (I've got my great uncle's cattle cane with notches carved in it to represent hash marks for heads.) including my great grandmother's candy thermometer. I don't know how Mawmaw would feel about her candy thermometer making beer but it sure did work! Pat bottled the beer yesterday night and we have to wait 3 weeks to see how it will turn out. I hope it'll be good!
Perhaps I will post later as I received some copies of Bill Boys "Small World" entry that I carved the blocks for. They look great in color and I was glad to participate in a collaborative effort! (Hint, Hint for those of you who would like to collaborate on a piece with me!)