MAGPRINT Original Prints

2011-11-15T12:18:00.001-05:00

My E-vite for the One of a Kind Christmas Show here in Toronto. Just over a week to go!

2011-11-06T10:47:00.001-05:00

I am busy preparing for the One of a Kind Christmas show here in Toronto. I will be participating for the first five days of the show.

Along with original prints I will be showing Moleskine journals and papier mache bowls and platters.

Running Horse 1

2011-09-26T12:50:00.003-04:00

This new one of a kind print was featured here

The Older I Get the Better I Was - Mencken

2011-09-05T19:02:00.000-04:00

This print was in a very interesting Treasury on Etsy awhile ago -here. I love the name of the Treasury - The secret love affair of Mr. & Mrs. Dada in etsyland!

In All Canadian Treasury on Etsy

2011-09-02T10:33:00.001-04:00

This print is in a new All Canadian treasury on Etsy here - all white and black and red. Very cool.

Kabuki Crest 15

2011-07-18T09:16:00.000-04:00

One of my recent small one of a kind print. Available here.

The central motif is a family crest belonging to an acting family from Japanese Kabuki theatre. This Edo pattern was originally printed as a souvenir for Kabuki enthusiasts. Later the design was used to decorate clothing and small personal objects. I am continuing this tradition.

Barns Art Market in Toronto/Africa Pot 1

2011-07-15T23:53:00.000-04:00

Off to the Barns Art Market at the Wychwood Barns in Toronto tomorrow with a batch of new prints. Over this last week I made 42 new one of a kind small prints as I almost sold out of the ones I made for my last show.

Bamboo and Water

2011-07-04T09:18:00.000-04:00

My latest large scale (20" x 26") print, one of a kind. I am still reimagining the bamboo forest I walked through in Kyoto.

Available here.

Icing Glaze Vase

2011-07-03T23:14:00.000-04:00

Back to printing West German vases - this time in black and white - and just concentrating on the textural quality of the glazes.

I like this one. It is pretty darn cheerful with the big circles. I think those designers had a lot of fun with their creations.

Available here.

Etsy Front Page

2011-06-21T14:02:00.000-04:00

One of my prints - The Ridge Roof - was included in a Treasury that made it to the front page of Etsy. Thank you MalcolmStudioShop.

New Crop of Small Prints

2011-06-17T17:59:00.000-04:00

In preparing for my Barns Art Market show tomorrow I printed up a batch of 6" x6" one of a kind prints and these three are from that batch.

I had actually printed the watery backgrounds 2 or 3 years ago. At that point, I think I had run out of ideas so I put the partially completed sheets away. Of course, I would keep on coming across them in the studio and I would shuffle through them and wonder what the heck I ever thought I was going to do with them.

Now that they are finished it seems obvious what I should have done with them ... hindsight is everything they say it is.

All SOLD.

Barns Art Market

2011-06-16T14:35:00.000-04:00

This Saturday is fast approaching ............... and I am still waiting for my latest prints to finish drying. The humidity has been slowly picking up and the drying times is getting really extended. These prints are all signed and stamped, but not dry. Waiting .... waiting .... waiting......

Carstens Ankara Vase

2011-06-06T10:01:00.000-04:00

When I took my relief printing course, which got me started in all of this, we did a lot of collographs. I've always enjoyed the textures and variations that can be achieved with this technique. As I do not have a press I print these as relief blocks, not intaglio.

This print is my interpretation of a Carstens Ankara West German pottery art vase with a raised geometric pattern.

Available for sale here.

A Purply Kind of Day

2011-05-23T14:36:00.000-04:00

It has been a semi-sunny semi-rainy May long weekend. You can tell it has rained today.

I have this succulent on my patio table, bought at the Toronto Botanical Garden plant sale last week. I have no idea what it is called or how it grows or anything, but the form and colour caught my eye. I haven't found a suitable pot for it yet - one that compliments the colour of the leaves - a purpley colour as you can see.

I also have a big glazed pot full of chives on the deck. The chives live year round in the pot. I just cut them back in the fall and pull a green plastic garbage bag over everything and tuck the ends underneath the pot. They start to grow very early in the spring due to the southern exposure and the micro-climate generated by the plastic. I have to be quick about getting plastic off before the chives get too tall or they are all bent and crumpled in a Hunchback of Notre Dame sort of manner.

I often forget to cut the flowers. I have never remembered to snip the flowers while they are still buds. I understand they are good in salads. Some year I'll remember in time. But today I did remember and cut a bunch and found a great little vase for them.

This is a hand painted thrifted vase bought years ago. The maker's mark is a curved Czecho-slovakia around a little vase with a lid on it. In the middle of the vase is a W. And the painter's initials are E.R.B. I like the chive flowers in it.

Swept Away Linocut Print

2011-05-10T09:25:00.001-04:00

My second print of a black and white windswept tree, done in 2005. Compared to my current trees, this one is very dense and black, with most of the detail around the edges. Available for sale here.

Windswept Tree

2011-05-09T19:04:00.000-04:00

This is the print that got me started on black and white windswept trees back in 2004. I think it is a great subject and one that I keep on returning to.

Barns Art Market

2011-05-05T09:18:00.000-04:00

I have been accepted into the Barns Art Market, a new art venue in Toronto, located at the Artscape Wychwood Barns, a former TTC streetcar repair facility. It is now a community centre heavily into arts and culture. It is the home of the Green Barns Farmer's Market which runs year round and this year Artscape has added an artist's street one Saturday a month running through the summer. My dates are:

June 18
July 16
August 20

2011 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition

2011-05-03T10:48:00.000-04:00

I will be participating in the2011 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition taking place on July 8, 9 and 10 at Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall. It is the 50th anniversary of this show, as the image above attests to! The granddaddy of outdoor shows in Toronto, to be sure and juried to boot.

There are so many outdoor shows in Toronto now. The calendar is pretty crowded and I wonder if there are really enough quality artists and craftspeople to go around without making the shows a bit repetitive for the people who attend. Here is a partial list:

Riverdale Art Walk - 1 weekend in June
Barns Art Market - 6 dates May to October
Distillery Art Market - weekends April to October
Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition - 1 weekend in July
Sunnyside Beach Juried Art Show and Sale - 1 to 2 weekends over the summer
Cabbagetown Arts Festival -1 weekend in September
Queen West Art Crawl - 1 weekend in September
Junction Arts Festival - 1 weekend in September
St. Clair Artwalk - 1 weekend in September

Well it looks as if there is a gap in August!

The extent of the list does show a maturity in the grass roots arts life in this city. A huge leap forward from 50 years ago

Three Tree Hill

2011-04-30T09:15:00.001-04:00

Another one of a kind 6"x6" print. Recently sold on Etsy and on its way to China, where it will join a number of my other prints.

Mabou Coal Mines Beach

2011-04-24T20:44:00.000-04:00

I was just in Cape Breton and took the opportunity to go down to Mabou Coal Mines Beach. I have only known this beach in the summer and it is the same, but different. All of the colours were darker and cooler

The tide was high and the day was cold, but still - very still. And very misty in the distance. The water was flat, flat, flat with only ripples. It didn't actually disappear into the sky, but if it had been mistier it would have. My sister and I walked as far as we could without walking into the Northumberland Strait. I tested the water and it was the sort of cold that would numb you in seconds.

The beach didn't have too much shingle on it, but high up on the beach were mounds and mounds of fine graded stones. Not much else, some seaweed, a bit of driftwood, a few shells. No dead cows. We did once find a dead cow here.

Leaning Willow & Double Brown Willow Prints

2011-04-08T09:50:00.013-04:00

Not exactly a bamboo print. Actually not a bamboo print at all. I have gone back into my boxes of small blocks and printed up a number of 6" x 6" one of a kind prints that I have listed in my Etsy shop.

This is one way of using up little bits ink leftover from other prints. This means that the prints tend to resemble one another in their colour selections. I made a lot of these prints in 2007 and you could tell the different print runs as the colourway changed significantly from print run to print run.

Well, all of those prints are long gone, but I recently came across a small stash of paper ripped to the 6" x 6" size, so waste not - want not. I'll keep making them until the stash is used up.

Leaning Bamboo can be found here and Double Brown Willow can be found here.

Kyoto Bamboo Print

2011-04-07T09:07:00.001-04:00

When I got back from that trip to Japan in 2008 I immediately made prints featuring bamboo. Small prints, medium sized prints, great big prints, colourful prints - no black and white prints though. That short walk through the bamboo forest certainly inspired an awful lot of printing in a very short time.

Well I've started on bamboo prints again. I love the verticality of the trunks and the fact that I can overprint them and make a real forest. Not that I did that in this print. I think I was in a stark mood when I made this. The print is made of three blocks, just placed where I wanted them and taped down before I rolled the ink on. I am getting a feeling I will do red bamboo next. Or red and black.

I have never yet captured the feeling of that forest.

Kyoto Bamboo can be found here.

Kyoto Bamboo

2011-04-04T15:40:00.000-04:00

When I was in Kyoto I visited a number of temples which were all in beautiful and serene garden settings. At one of the temples there was a bamboo forest with a small road winding up the hill. There was a breeze and I could hear the tops of the bamboo hitting one another with a clacking sound - so unlike the sounds of the forests I know. Running along side the road was a low stone wall and set on top of the wall was a fence made of some sort of straw like material all woven together. It was sublime.

I walked up the road listening to the bamboo clacking away and thought that I never wanted to leave. Can you just imagine walking around that corner of the road and just disappearing? I could.

Etsy Front Page

2011-03-26T22:54:00.000-04:00

My aphorism print - Worrying solves nothing - made it onto Etsy's front page last Thursday night. I was asleep (of course) and missed it. Other people were awake though because my shop views went through the proverbial roof.

Thank you RenataandJonathan for putting this Treasury together.

Double Pine

2011-03-19T19:08:00.001-04:00

My most recent black and white tree print. I like the ground plane - it has a nice interleaving texture. Sometimes the sketch on the lino is only the first idea and that idea changes as I cut.

Double Pine is available for sale here.

Japanese Pine

2011-03-16T10:03:00.001-04:00

Another black and white print!

This is my usual size - about 8" wide and 11" tall. But I find myself considering using a full piece of paper which is 20" x 26" and use that size to jump up in scale considerably. Still using trees. Still in black and white.The idea has been in my mind for awhile - long skinny trunks with branches and needles only at the top.

So today I was looking at a print by Marten Hazelaar of anemones, which is just exactly what I was visualizing. It is a stunning print. So I had better get to work on mine.

Japanese Pine is available for sale here.

Pine Tree & Stream

2011-03-04T14:53:00.003-05:00

Another black and white print - a little more complicated than my usual. If I were to cut it again I would leave the trunk and branches completely black. I do like the gravel walkway though.

Pine Tree & Stream is available for sale here.

Moss Green Forest

2011-03-01T16:50:00.000-05:00

In this print have combined two separate tree blocks which have been printed multiple times over a background of stripes. When I look at it I am reminded of reforestation projects where the trees are planted in grids - all lined up in rows like sentinels.

Bamboo Forest

2011-02-26T22:41:00.002-05:00

When I was in Kyoto I walked on a roadway through a bamboo forest and listened to the clacking sounds of the bamboo in the breeze. The road wound up through the forest and on either side of the road was a stone wall with a woven brush fence on top of it. I didn't want to leave - it was too beautiful.

Inspired by Hundertwasser

2011-02-18T19:37:00.001-05:00

I have a lot of leftover pieces of linoleum - long thin pieces stored in my studio. I've pulled them out of the cupboard, considered them, put them back and then repeated the process a few months later. I never threw them out because I always thought I would come up with some printerly idea for them. Well the idea struck last August here.

I had an opportunity to revisit Hundertwasser's work and the 'AHA' button went off in my head. One block was quickly cut, then all sorts of other things intervened and finally this February I made enough blocks to produce this print.

This style of print lets me work with patterns - lots of patterns - love it. I can also combine the patterns with the striped backgrounds that I started to use when I made prints of my grandmother's quilts. All in all, a very satisfactory combination of ideas.

Hundertwasser Inspired Blocks

2011-02-15T15:49:00.000-05:00

About six months ago I was reintroduced to Hundertwasser - his images, patterns and colours - of course very inspirational for me because of all of the patterns. Now I have the time to start to explore some of the ideas that I had then and to start to translate them into prints. I have cut three blocks so far and have any number left to go.

Happy Birthday Andrew

2011-02-14T14:46:00.001-05:00

I made this print when I lived in Taiwan.

I had a friend there whose birthday fell on the 15th of February, right after Valentine's Day. As usual, with most birthdays close to other significant days, his birthday was lost in the rush of hearts and sweets and kisses from the day before.

So I made this print as a gift for him and also as a small visual pun based on his birth date.

Happy Birthday Andrew is available for sale here.

Twisted Trunk

2011-02-13T10:02:00.001-05:00

Another print finished last year. The gnarled trunk of this pine tree was what attracted me. The bark on the trunk was very textured, but I decided that it was the form of the trunk that I wanted to concentrate on and have the pine needles add a light and lacy texture to the final image.

Twisted Trunk is available for sale here.

Black Pine

2011-02-12T10:36:00.006-05:00

I started making prints of windswept trees in 2004 and find I keep on returning to that idea. While I was in Japan in 2008 I took photos of many trees and I will eventually get around to making some of those into new prints. The only thing is, since most of them are pine trees, I am going to have an interesting time coming up with titles that aren't too repetitive. I already have six prints with the word pine in the title.

This Black Pine print was completed last year, just in time for me to use my new chop. The chop was brought back from China by my friend Lin and this is the first print I used it on. I like the organic imperfect shape and the old style calligraphy used for the letters.

Black Pine is available for sale here.

Rocks at Mabou Coal Mines Beach

2010-06-20T18:07:00.006-04:00

I started this print last December and then put it aside thinking it would be easy to finish whenever I wanted to. Should never do that.

When I got back to it I decided that my original thought of black and white rocks with some sort of texture for sand was too blank looking. So I added a reduction backing block and went for full on colour.

Rocks at Mabou Coal Mines Beach is available for sale here.

Sunnyside Breakwater

2010-06-15T20:32:00.011-04:00

Last summer I was in an art show on the Western Beaches in Toronto at the Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion. There is a swimming area separated from Lake Ontario with a concrete and stone breakwater and I took a few photographs.

I completed this reduction print in the spring.

Sunnyside Breakwater is available for sale here.

The Ridge Roof

2010-06-13T10:32:00.007-04:00

I have quite a collection of photos of the farmhouse near Mabou in Cape Breton where my father was born. This print is based on one of those photographs and shows the new part of the house built by my grandfather - a two storey addition. The house is clad in cedar shingles painted white, but now faded with the weather. The lines are simple and unadorned.

This is a reduction print. I used pink and mauve to soften the austerity of the house and the red of the power line leading to the road lifts gives a jump to the image.

When I showed this to my father, he said it was perfect, just perfect.

The Ridge Roof is available for sale here.

Red Bead Necklace

2010-02-07T22:45:00.007-05:00

Last summer, when my niece was opening her birthday presents I took the photo that this print is based on. Umm, the necklace wasn't actually red.

Red Bead Necklace is available for sale here.

Steve Proof

2010-02-07T22:39:00.006-05:00

First proof in black which feels a bit too stark. The sneakers will be turquoise and maybe the rest will be purple. Have to see.

Inked Steve Block

2009-12-30T14:11:00.004-05:00

Steve block inked and printed, before the ink is cleaned off the block.

Starting to Cut Steve's Block

2009-12-23T17:01:00.006-05:00

In and out of the oven with this piece of lino over the last few hours. A bit of cutting, a bit of warming and then more cutting.

Steve

2009-12-23T09:26:00.008-05:00

One of my holiday tasks is to continue work on making prints of people I know. These images are parts of a sketch of Steve, working from a photo I took months ago. The whole sketch has now been transferred to the block and the block is warming up in the oven as the lino feels pretty hard - not quite sure how old it is.

Bamboo Forest

2009-12-13T17:41:00.007-05:00

When I was in Japan I spent a little (far too little) time in Kyoto.

While I was there I walked up a road in the middle of a bamboo forest. I walked and walked up the hill away from my friends and listened to the sounds of the bamboo forest. There was a bit of a breeze and the bamboo swayed in it. The tops of the bamboo hit one another and the sounds they made were an unsyncopated rhythm of hollow clacks. Quite eerie and beautiful.

When I came home I immediately made a series of prints of bamboo forests.

Red & Brown Forest

2009-11-28T11:39:00.014-05:00

I am still going through my boxes full of small blocks looking for interesting combinations.

This print is composed of two linoblocks. One is a swirly pattern that I use alternately as sky or water and this one was printed once and overprinted using a different portion of the block. The second lino is the tree block, here printed in two colours and offset slightly so that the trees appear to be different. The curved green pattern behind the trees is an old piece of wood that was wire brushed to bring out the grain. Again it was printed twice using two different colours and printing different sections of the block to give variety.

Altogether, a lot of movement going on in the background in contrast to the trees in front.

Sold December 5, 2009.

Thirty Three Bags of Apples

2009-11-27T19:39:00.007-05:00

At the front of my house I share an apple tree with my next door neighbour. The tree is pretty old and produces full size apples which are actually good as eating or cooking apples - or they would be if they didn't have so many worms in them.

Unfortunately the apples fall off the tree before they are properly ripe and when they hit the sidewalk, the driveway and the road they split. Which brings on the wasps and generaly leaves everything a little messy.

And when they fall, do they ever fall. Lots and lots of them. I pick them up in the morning before I go to work. I pick them up in the evening when I come home from work. I sometimes pick them up again before I go to bed. I pick them out of my shrubs. I pick them from under the cars parked on the street. I pick them up from along the curb. I pick them off of my front walk. I clean them off of my neighbours front walk and my neighbours front lawn (she's old).

Oh, I pick them up and pick them up and pick them up. Thirty three bags in one week is the record!

Moleskine Covers

2009-11-27T19:24:00.011-05:00

Over the summer I got out my stash of Japanese papers I used to use for papier mache and started printing covers for Moleskine 5" x 8" notebooks. Lots of fun.

Field of Running Horses

2009-11-27T12:46:00.008-05:00

I have neglected the blog shamefully! Check the date of my last post.

Still making some 6" x 6" one of a kind prints.

I made 50 or 60 two years ago and they are long ago sold. So here I go making a few more. I am using much more transparent base with my inks so that the colour layering is visible which adds another layer of interest to the print.

Sold December 12, 2009.

Red Fish Swimming

2007-08-20T22:15:00.001-04:00

I have to admit I like a lot of the names I give my prints because they are often just off the top of my head and relate very directly to the print. So Red Fish Swimming really is about red fish swimming. You've got the fish, you've got the water - they have to be swimming - right?. And unless you are colourblind, yes they are red.

Blue Horse Running

2007-08-19T18:16:00.000-04:00

Another 'cobbled' together print.

The sky is from another reject block. What was I thinking at the time? It is a great block. Good thing I didn't throw it out. I learned that lesson a few years ago when I came across a proof of a print that I thought, at the time, was a lousy image, but years later saw that it was actually quite good. Did I still have the blocks? Nope. Too bad - so sad. I still have the proof though. The colours are a bit wishy washy, but the image definitely had potential. Sigh.

The landform is from a print that never made it through the proofing stage, but by this time I knew better and I saved the blocks and lo and behold this block is actually quite useful. I think I may have to make a few more blocks like this for more variety.

And the horse. Ah, that little horse block has been around for a long time now. When I first cut the block, I didn't have any real use for him. It was only a couple of years later in 1999 that I editioned him up in a print called Running Horse. And now he is continuing to run through all sorts of one-of-a-kind prints.

More Holland Willows

2007-08-19T17:47:00.001-04:00

I have been on a bit of a printing binge lately and have been experimenting with a series of small one of a kind prints using a combination of existing and purpose cut blocks.

This print is made from two of my recent pollarded willow trees. The waves come from a block I made in 1995 (!) and the land under the trees comes from an envelope of blocks that never were completed as prints (it was fun going through those rejected blocks - not all of them were bad at all). The background block is one that I tend to use over and over and is the inspiration for the name of this print - Misty Day 2 (the first Misty Day sold too quickly for me to blog about it).

All in all, I like the freedom this random method gives me and I have made about 30 or so of these prints so far. Not all of them are willow trees!

Hassium

2007-06-04T08:17:00.000-04:00

Hassium was synthesized in 1984 in Darmstadt Germany by Peter Armbruster, Gottfried Munzenberg et al. Atoms of lead were bombarded with ions of iron with a linear accelerator to produce Hassium. It is classified as a transition metal and its appearnce is unknown, but assumed to be silvery white or metallic grey. It is highly radioactive. The name Hassium comes from the Latin for the German State of Hesse where Darmstadt is located.

This information was not a lot to go on, but as you can see I managed. By combining the (old) symbol for radioactivity, with a portion of the Hesse Coat of Arms (rampant lion) and a Gothic style font (Germanic in feel) I came up with my version of the element Hassium for the Periodic Table Printmaking Project.

Periodic Table Printmaking Project

2007-06-01T13:28:00.001-04:00

This is a print of one of my blocks for the Periodic Table Printmaking Project started by azuregrackle from Etsy.

I chose Hassium which, as it turns out, is one of those completely unknown elements. It was created in 1984, but there does not seem to be any use for it - maybe because it is radioactive!. It is a transition metal (hmmm - transitioning from something else or to something else?) and it might be a silvery colour. Not too much to go on visually.

So my starting point was the word Hassium, which is Latin for Hesse, the state in Germany where Hassium was discovered. This lion is part of the Hesse coat of arms. I am going to work in the notion of radioactivity as well. For my text (we have to show the periodic symbol and number on the print) I am going to use a Gothic font which could be considered Germanic.

Holland Willow and Double Willow

2007-05-29T08:46:00.003-04:00

Staying true to the tree theme.

I like the look of pollarded trees with their thick knotted stumps. I suppose I like them because of the interesting shapes that are created by this style of pruning. It is the polar opposite of pruning a tree to enhance its natural form. And it is a form of pruning rarely seen in North America. The Getty Museum in California has pollarded trees as part of its landscape design and I have seen individual pollarded trees here in Toronto, usually on people's front lawns. But not as part of a designed urban landscape. Maybe it would cost too much to prune the trees all the time.

These prints are willow trees in Holland which are pruned every few years to create a crop of supple willow branches. I believe they are pruned just high enough so that the branches aren't eaten, but low enough for easy harvest. Though I wonder if the willow branches are still harvested at all. . I would like to make a larger print with a number of pollarded willows receding into the distance in a marshy landscape.

Double Willow is available for sale here. Holland Willow is available for sale here.

Cloud Pine

2007-05-28T08:12:00.000-04:00

I am staying simple for the moment and concentrating on trees.

This is a cloud pruned pine tree and is my print for Print Zero Studios' Print Exchange V. So far there are two confirmed exhibitions - the Florida Printmakers hosting at the University of Florida and the Sev Shoon Art Center/ BallardWorks who are hosting in Seattle. Their last exchange had 285 participants from from 18 countries and the show travelled to four states in the US.

Winter Trees

2007-05-07T23:00:00.002-04:00

Simplicity achieved.

A simple rendition of winter trees against a snowy furrowed field. The starkness is just what I need in my printmaking life at the moment. Clean and cool and refreshing.

Winter Trees is available for sale here.

Multiple Squares Quilt Finished

2007-04-18T19:54:00.002-04:00

The finished print. It took a long time from initial sketch to final print, but I am happy with the result.

I made the sketch last November/December and finished printing the edition during the first week of March. That is quite a lot of time for a low tech block print, though I was working on the Rayon Dress Quilt as well as a number of other prints at the same time ( and there is the day job which does eat into the time available). But I found that every step of the quilt prints took a lot longer than I thought. More planning.... more blocks... more proofing.... more revisions to the blocks.... proofing again.... hitting my head against the wall.... etc. etc. etc.

So my thoughts now are turning to simpler images and prints where I can get some immediate gratification. More spontaneity and less focus on process (even though printmakers love process).

Multiple Squares Quilt is available for sale here.

Multiple Squares Quilt - Work In Progress

2007-04-17T10:30:00.000-04:00

A work in progress shot of the print that I have called the Multiple Squares Quilt. The print is based on one of my grandmother's quilts. Most of her quilts are composed of long strips of material, but this one is made of many small squares and must have taken much more time to make than most of the other quilts. I wonder if she worked on this in the winter time, when there would have been fewer visitors able to get to the farm on Southeast Ridge near Mabou, Cape Breton.

The Red Flute

2007-04-16T10:06:00.003-04:00

Just a small print for fun. This was a bit of a break from all of the larger quilt prints I working on at the time. It was so nice to cut and print this one over a few days. For sale here.

The quilt prints were taking a huge amount of time in terms of making the blocks, proofing them, revising the blocks, reproofing. I was starting to drive myself mad with them.

Ingrid's New Golf Socks

2007-04-15T09:44:00.002-04:00

So there I was wanting to make a print of argyle patterned socks. I don't know where that idea came from. The ether I suppose. At any rate, the idea was there so I pursued it, except that I didn't end up with argyle socks at all. They are socks alright, just not argyle ones.

I brought a proof of the print into work and I was thinking to myself 'Who in the world would actually wear socks that looked like this?. I mean, look at the colour and pattern combination. The robin's egg blue, the Dijon mustard yellow, the harsh red. No self respecting person would ever wear these. They are quite ugly'. But then I thought - maybe Ingrid would. (Obviously another thought out of the ether.)

To my surprise, when I showed them to her, Ingrid said they would make great golf socks. She is an avid golfer and, I suppose, has paid attention to fashion on the golf scene - unlike myself. So I asked if I could name the print after her and that was fine except she asked me to put the word 'new' in the title. As Ingrid explained it, she is terribly hard on her golf socks and they have holes in them all the time.

Available for sale here.

Rock and Waterfalls

2007-01-20T19:12:00.002-05:00

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.

Along the Cabot Trail

2007-01-13T16:34:00.002-05:00

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.

More Fabric Prints

2007-01-07T12:53:00.001-05:00

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.

Running Horse Plaid

2006-12-31T20:00:00.000-05:00

As a bit of a break from working on my large blocks for the quilt prints, I have printed up a number of smaller images based loosely on imaginary fabric patterns. This has also given me the opportunity to play around with transparent inks, which I have rarely done. I find my Daniel Smith transparent base absolutely impossible to work with. I think I should talk to someone at DS about that. My other DS inks are great, so why isn't this one??

So, for the moment, I am trying out Setswell Compound. It makes the ink feel really greasy and it takes ages to dry, but the colours become very transparent. There is also a bit of a problem with ink 'squish' around the edges of the blocks, but who said life was perfect.

The Running Horse Plaid is a pretty jaunty little print. Well, it is not that small - 8"x10"image size - on BFK Rives Lightweight paper. I have all sorts of small blocks, so I sifted through them and came up with the ones I used for this print. OK, I did have to make the long blocks (printed in orange here). There was nothing particularly planned about this print. I just laid down the background yellow and then positioned various blocks on top of it until I had an idea of what I would print next. The colours were actually quite random as well. I had little smidges of ink saved from my quilt proofs and I just used those, watered down immensely with the Setswell.

All in all, not a bad print - to my mind. It makes me think of a sunny kitchen, with this pattern on an old piece of oilcloth on the kitchen table. Part of an imaginary childhood out of a storybook I suppose. But the print is real, so who is to say that that kitchen didn't exist sometime, somewhere.

West German Vases

2006-11-24T23:14:00.002-05:00

A couple of years ago I bought a small vase made by Scheurich in West Germany. It has a vermilion underglaze and a black lava glaze on top in a spider web pattern. The form is very simple, but I find the piece is stunning. This vase made me take a closer look at West German vases from the sixties and seventies and I found an awful lot to like. The modern forms, the interesting colour combinations - lots of browns, reds, turquoises and then all of the textures in the glazes captured my attention.

I decided I would have to try and recreate those glaze textures in print form and so I started to print vases. I have now editioned five vases and the two shown here are my current favourites. Someday I will make a print of the one I actually own!

Vase No. 26is available for sale here.

The Rayon Dress Quilt: Work in Progress

2006-11-23T23:20:00.001-05:00

One of my grandmother's quilts originally looked very un-quilt like to me. It is made up of very slippery fabrics and is very light weight. A summer weight quilt I suppose. My impression of quilts was that they were always heavy and made of wool. So I wonder where these fabrics came from? I doubt there is anyone left who can actually answer that question. So I have guessed and called it the Rayon Dress Quilt.

My blocks are all completed and I started the proofing a couple of weekends ago. Some of the colours in the quilt are quite faded so I started the proof in brighter, fresher versions of those colours and I will see where that gets me.

Most of the blocks are multi colour,so it means mixing up a whole batch of different colours and then finding enough small brayers for the inking. I think the fourth block has seven colours on it. The upper photo is the proof after printing two blocks and the lower photo is the proof after printing four blocks. One more block to go and then I'll see what I think of the result. I'm getting a feeling that I will want to make changes. So far the print looks too smooth, not like material at all. I know what I have to do to fix that, but it means making two more blocks. Or maybe three.

The bottom photo is a portion of the actual quilt which now looks every inch its age. It has faded over time. Parts of it are ripped. Some of the fabrics seem to have streched at different rates, so some are flat and some are bubbly. But in spite of the toll that time has taken, it retains a wonderful sense of fun and whimsy. The colours are a little bit riotous. The stripes start and stop just as they please. The crossed x's and diamond patterns wander randomly across the surface. And yet, the finished quilt is a whole jumble of fun. If this was an unplanned pattern, it sure as heck worked.

Printing My Grandmother's Quilts

2006-11-03T16:49:00.000-05:00

My father's family comes from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia and my grandmother made quilts for all the beds in the farmhouse. There were winter weight quilts and lighter summer quilts. Many of these old quilts are still left on the farm and when I was there this summer I took pictures and made sketches of 17 or 18 of them with a view to making prints based on their designs.

I started with the quilt my cousin Daniel uses in his spare bedroom. The design is very plain, just a series of stripes, but the overall effect is very calm and pleasing. Most of the darker stipes are made from lightweight woolen fabrics while the very pale stripes are a loosely woven cotton fabric which appears to have been dyed in different colours. The upper photo shows a detail of the proof I pulled of the print. Some of the textural effects worked onto the blocks can be seen in the inking.