Saturday, January 20, 2007

Rock and Waterfalls


My first rock and waterfall print - one with a Van Gough sky too!

I have done a number of later rock and water prints, but this one is still my favourite. I think it is the contrast between the sinewy rocks and the straight lines of the water that I like. I think the whole print has an Art Deco flavour.

The keyblock is linoleum (I think it was a flooring sample) and the backing blocks are cardboard with a bit of texture added - if I remember correctly!

Available for sale here.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Along the Cabot Trail



About 18 months I ago I went around the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton and I took all of the usual photos of the ocean and headlands. Typical tourist stuff. But when I was going through them recently I found one of a rock face along the highway. Now I love rocks, but I am rarely satisfied with the way I cut them so I decided to have a go at these with a new set of cutting tools.


The keyblock holding all of the detail is linoleum and the backing blocks are cardboard with added textures, though the textures are pretty subtle. I like the overall effect and the colour combinations. The colours in no way resemble real life, but that's fine with me.

Available for sale here.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

More Fabric Prints



Well I am still experimenting with fabric prints while I finish off the blocks for my quilt prints. I am working on two quilt patterns at the moment. One is the Rayon Dress Quilt and the second is tentatively called Fancy Squares Quilt. When I look at that title on this page, it looks pretty bad, so I'll likely change it.


My problem is I keep on adding blocks for the quilt prints and now I am starting to dread the actual printing as I know that it always takes longer than I anticipated. I am preparing these two prints for a show in March, which sounds like oodles of time, but...... I know it really isn't (the day job takes up my days after all). So getting sidetracked by the smaller prints is not the best strategy, but I can't help myself.

These prints use and reuse a series of small blocks. Some are many years old and were used in editioned prints. Others I have cut specifically for this series of prints and now I have a box full of them. Selecting the blocks is as bad as trying to decide what to wear to work:

- Out comes the box.
- Out spill all the blocks.
- Some of the blocks are put down in this or that combination and considered.
- Hmmm, well lets take these away and try those instead.
- Ouch, that didn't work.
- If I do this instead of that, does it look better?
- Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, maybe......
- OK, just move this over here, switch this one for that one and...
- Well this might work, but what if I move....

You can see how it goes and I haven't even thought about colours yet.

Since these prints are exploratory in nature I am not printing editions, just one of each and listing them in my Etsy shop.