Bamboo Forest

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

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

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

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

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

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.