What I’ve been up to, Part 1

After a long hiatus, it’s time to return to providing regular updates to this blog! I’ve continued my adventures in art and will share what I’ve created over the past 2 ½ years.

Relief prints have been my passion and continue to be a major part of my art exploration. Since my earliest efforts to create multicolored block prints, I think I’ve come a long way, however I learn with each new project—and that’s what it’s all about.

 

Portrait of a Magpie

5” x 7”
(Artist’s proof – the “white” feathers were intended to be blue in the final print)

After the first “crude” pieces, my next effort required several visual references and drawing time to capture the subject, the magpie! I love this little guy! Magpies have striking black and white markings, with a flash of blue on their wing feathers in the right light.

They can be rather obnoxious if they take a disliking to you. A couple who bought a print of this fellow from me said the magpies hanging around their ranch regularly teased and tormented their dog. It seems that many people have a love-hate relationship with magpies. So far, I love them.

When it came to adding color, I had some registration issues with my blue plate due to inconsistent plate sizes. But I was happy with the image and experimented with adding color using colored pencils. To my delight, the results were good and I sold them all!

 

My next project: Winter Moon Tree

For our anniversary, we went to Taos for a weekend. It was early November, and the high country was blanketed by an early snow. The route we took was beautiful, eventually winding to the top of a plateau, where this lone tree stood in a field of snow. I added the moon. 😊

 

 

Winter Moon Tree
4” x 6”
Multicolor Relief Print

It took a couple of tries to get this result, which required four plates (one for each color). That’s the thing about relief prints: there are so many variables and so many things that can go wrong. When you’re cutting the image into the plates, one slip of the tool and you’ve chopped out an integral part of the image, as well as, occasionally, a chunk of finger. It was at about this stage in my journey that I managed to cut myself almost every time I was cutting a plate—tender red crescent moons on one or more fingertips. I like to say that when a piece turns out to be a success, it’s a relief.

Showtime!

In late spring, I learned of a pop-up print show Mancos Commons was presenting mid-summer. Determined to participate, in addition to the prints I’d created, I went back to some old plates and printed some new images, hand-coloring a few (since I’d discovered good results with the magpie!). It was a fun show, and I was inspired by techniques used by other artists. I sold several pieces, which spurred me to continue working with relief printing.