Red Fish Swimming

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

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

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!