The Village

March 23, 2007

Charcoal Pencil

5"x7"

I went out for a walk yesterday and found a bare patch of ground and a dry log to sit on where the snow had melted. The warm spring sun was lovely on my face as I sat and sketched.

Melting Snow

The snow of East Hardwick

Melts in the March sun

While children play

In distant mud puddles

The sound of the crow

Moves me to capture

This fine spring day

Presidential Range

March 21, 2007

Monotype

8"x10"

This print is taken from a drawing done last fall when hiking in New Hampshire. The print was done quickly but I am pleased with the loose quality that the quickly manipulated ink has taken on.

Frozen Resevoir

March 21, 2007

Monotype

5"x7"

I love the way the monotype version of the image came out so heavy. The dark clouds still feel light and airy, yet there is something ominous about them that is starting to speak to me.

Marshfield Reservoir

March 19, 2007

Charcoal Pencil

4.75"x6.75"

Marshfield Reservoir

Drove up to the boat launch at the Marshfield Dam on my lunch break to sketch. It was a beautiful morning and the clouds were very poetic as they stretched across the light blue sky.

Unfortunately I smudged the charcoal a bit before I had a chance to spray the drawing with fixative or even scan it. So I fixed it up the best I could but that does not change the fact that this might make an excellent little monotype.

Starlight Woodblock 2

March 18, 2007

Cherry Woodblock with marker and carving

5.5"x6.75"

I started to work on this and realized I needed to finalize the drawing on the block as the graphite had faded a bit. The drawing has changed a great deal from earlier versions, for the better I think.

Book Cover 2

March 18, 2007

Balsa wood, rice paper and black enamel

7.5"x10"

Friday night I was looking at the plain wood frame and thinking about the prints that I was planning to place inside. It made sense to try a version painted black as it would match the prints better as they will all have black ink as the main element for the print.

I also received these tiny hinges to attach the screens to the spine. They are a quarter inch square of shiny brass and will look really nice against the black wood. The problem now is finding brass screw-posts as everything I can find in the local hardware stores is aluminum.

Starlight Woodblock

March 16, 2007

Cherry Woodblock

5.5"x6.75"

The carving for this little block is going well and is a little different for me. I wanted the challenge of portraying a night scene and decided to fill the entire picture plane with marks. It will be interesting to see how it prints when it is finished.

Book Cover

March 16, 2007

7.5"x10"

Balsa wood and Rice Paper

This is a prototype for an art book cover that I am in the process of making. There will be six of my chiaroscuro prints paired with one of my poems. I wanted to come up with an idea for a book cover that was really special. So I used some kite building technology and designed this simple construction. I have some tiny brass hinges on order that should arrive in a couple of days. The hinges will attach the bar on the left to the larger set of three screens.

The one problem I encountered was stretching the rice paper over the balsa wood frame as I had about a sixteenth of an inch to work with. Next time I will give myself plenty of extra paper and trim the edges with a knife. Hopefully I will be able to get the paper stretched tightly with less sag.

Little Machias

March 10, 2007

Chiaroscuro Print

3.25"x5.25"

This is pretty close to the final version for this print as I will get. I am in the middle of a large edition of fifty prints for this one. Friday night I pulled two decent prints of the color block and then on Saturday I pulled two proofs, one of which you see here. After that I jumped right in and pulled twenty-six color plate prints and plan to finish the printing of the color plate this evening.

Peacham Pond

March 8, 2007

Charcoal Pencil

4.5"x6.25"

Yesterday I went into the Groton State Forest and did this little sketch. I walked about 100 feet out onto the pond with blowing snow and below zero temperatures. The pond and hills were barren but the swirling snow was rising up in such gusts that it was a beautiful sight. I added about a half inch on the right side of the drawing and doctored this image in Photoshop just a little.

Peacham Pond

Cold, cold blowing snow

Rises up off the frozen pond

Across the dark hills

Up into the sky

Beyond my reach

And into the clouds.

Little Machias Proof

March 3, 2007

Chiaroscuro Print

3.25"x5.25"

Here it is. Finishing off a very productive Saturday I printed three proofs of this little block that evening after the kids were asleep. There are a few issues that need to be resolved. First, I have carved back into into the color block just a little bit and much to my surprise the color block is about a sixteenth of an inch too small. So, I sanded the wood key block down just a bit on the top and hopefully it should bring the image together nicely and match the color block better than it does now.

Winter River

March 3, 2007

Monotype

5"x7"

I spent the bulk of my Saturday morning pulling prints off of an old plate of music but managed to quickly whip off this little print. There are some nice things about it but I was working rather quickly and there should be a little bit more sky and the land feels heavy in this composition.

Sheet Music

March 3, 2007

9"x5.5"

Iron Relief Print

I arrived early to set up the classroom at SPA in Barre last Saturday and had a surprise waiting for me. On the counter were four old iron printing plates with old sheet music on them. The director of the gallery left a note and asked if I could print these for a gallery Board Member who came across them. I know little else about the plates except that they are old and seem to be from a book of hymns.

They were difficult to print at first and I am lucky I did not tear the felt blankets. Even though I lowered the press pressure the relief was still high and almost tore through the paper as well. After a few pulls off the plates I figured out how to print them and this is the best example that I managed to print. There were a challenge but in the end were a great deal of fun to print.

Monotype Example

March 3, 2007

7"x5"

Monotype

This is the example I made for five students this past Saturday at Studio Place Arts in Barre, Vermont. I always make a quick example and have used this simple landscape image each time I have run the intro class. Years ago I had a dream about this spot along the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts and have made a painting and several prints of this dream.