Printing bandanas!

I finally finished carving my giant steamroller block today. I cut out the middle 20" of it and have used it to print my first ever bandanas.

It took some trial and error with inks and pressure to get a good print on the fabric. I'm still not sure that the ink I chose will ever dry and if it does, will it be stiff or soft? Will I be able to wash these things? All the answers will come in time. Meanwhile, I have this cool clothesline strung the length of my studio with some very colorful bandanas on it.

I'm a Steamroller, Baby!

Today I'm carving a three foot by three foot linoleum block for a steamroller project. That's right. We are going to print giant blocks on the street using a steamroller. This crazy event is being hosted by Asheville Bookworks on August 31st, 2013 from 1-5.

Back on my press again!

Finally today I had an excuse to crank the old etching press and it was glorious! I'm doing a design for a buff (that weird tubular piece of clothing that keeps fishermen and sportspeople from burning the heck out of the backs of their necks). This will be a giveaway item for Wounded Warriors at the Mossy Creek Invitational fishing tournament in June. For me, it's a chance to try out an idea to make a buff later in the year for something else.

I am really pleased with the design. It's supposed to look 'bad-ass', according to my customer, who is also my husband so I have even more incentive to make sure that he's happy with it. Next, I will ship it off to the Buff company so that they can print it. Stay tuned for pictures of the final product later this spring!

Coming soon to a gallery near you!

It's almost time for the annual Bookopolis Show at Asheville Bookworks. This is one of my favorite events. It's a book and print show with a theme and there's usually an adjunct project that a few brave artists participate in to raise some money for the scholarships at Bookworks.
This year, the Wood Engravers Network has partnered with printmakers in the Asheville area to do a project called Beer City Prints. The engravers (from all over the world) designed and printed beer labels and then the printmakers responded by designing and printing backgrounds.

I did two editions of prints for the project. In the first, I collaborated with Joanne Price from Minneapolis, who designed this wonderful Aegir Blonde Ale label. My background was done in two linoleum cuts and is entitled "Valhalla".

My second edition was also a two color linoleum cut, in which I partnered with Johanna Mueller from Centennial, Colorado. She did the charming Jurgen Way Brown Ale Label and my corresponding background is called "Foam on the Range".

All the prints can be seen in this weekend hanging at Asheville Bookworks. There's also a raffle and you can win a complete set of these prints, which come in a beautiful hand printed portfolio. http://www.ashevillebookworks.com/store/
To see other prints in the project, check out this link: https://picasaweb.google.com/108681744921560423176/BeerCityPrintPortfolio?locked=true&feat=email

If you're in the area, don't miss the opening of the whole show, including 75 artists' books, this Friday, September 21 from 6-9 or Saturday, the 22nd from 1-5.

Impromptu Mosaics and Other Last Minute Gifts

This December I'm finishing up a huge home improvement project which bled over from November and will be completed possibly two days before Christmas. I'm also packing and organizing for a five week trip which commences Christmas Day. I have plenty to keep me busy... but it just doesn't feel like the holidays unless I'm making a few gifts for someone. I don't know if secretly my hand made gifts are met with groans or simply tolerance but for some reason I just have to do it, so if you happen to be the lucky recipient, just take it out when I visit you and pretend it's out all year.

I decided to make something for my fiddle teacher, Beanie O'Dell, who is a fabulous instructor and gifted fiddler. I happened to find these unfinished wooden violin gift plaques on the Shar Music Website ( http://www.sharmusic.com/Shop-Shar/Gifts/Other/Misc/Violin-Gift-Plaque-with-purfling.axd ) and thought they were a good starting point. They were advertised as something that you could sign or draw on and give as a teacher gift. I decided to take a different approach.

I dug out all my pieces of tile and glass, ordered a few little extra tiles, and then lined up my three violin faces, grabbed my Weldbond glue, and started gluing! Each plaque began to take on a personality all its own. By the time I had finished, the three of them were very different.

The glue took about a day to dry and then I mixed up some sanded black grout and grouted them all. I had to do each one individually because the sponging step was laborious with all those little tiny tiles! Once the grout was set, I sealed it with a grout and tile sealer.

Tomorrow I will attach a sawtooth to the back and wrap two of the three plaques. The second one is for my neighbor, another awesome fiddler and the last one is for me to keep so that I can remember how well my anti-stress, "mosaic therapy" worked this holiday season.

And Beanie, you don't have to hang it. Really.

Bahamian Rhapsody

A few weeks ago, I had a delightful mid-winter escape to Andros Island in the Bahamas. It was my first visit and I was amazed at how few people were on Andros, compared with the bustle of the Nassau area. Andros is the largest but one of the least populated island in the Bahamas. There were days when I walked for an hour on an expanse of beautiful tropical beach and never saw another soul.

While there, I was adopted by lovely residents of the area where we were staying. One of our adventures was a trip to a local batik factory in Fresh Creek called Androsia. http://www.androsia.com/ I was so enthralled watching the batik process that we arranged to go back and take a class there. This 'factory' was a big warehouse-type building surrounded by scrub vegetation, where 20 yards of freshly batiked fabric hung next to someone's laundry.

One man who works there has over many years created the most wonderful stamps for making the fabric by developing his own stamping method. He designs and cuts a stamp out of heavy foam rubber and mounts it on a wire frame. The stamp is then dipped into the hot wax and printed onto the long lengths of white cotton fabric. Once it's all stamped, the fabric is dyed in old bathtubs. Then the wax is removed and the fabric hung out to dry. The ladies at the factory make wonderful clothing out of the fabric or you can buy it by the yard and bring it home to make your own.

In our batik lesson, we were given a practice strip and then one yard of fabric on which to make our own Bahamian inspired designs. We were given stamps to use and also a 'tjanting' pen, with which we could write or draw our own pictures. This turned out to be much more difficult than it looked in the demonstration! The ladies I was with then let me choose a color for all our pieces to be dyed, and I chose "Turtle Green", which was as close as I could find to the color of that beautiful Caribbean water.

As a thank you to my kind hosts, I came home and used some of my fabric to make bags, which I will send back to them to remind them of the fun we had one steamy day in the beautiful tropical paradise that is Andros.

Scratching a New Itch

In my constant quest to fight creative boredom, I tried some scratchboard. Instead of planning a design, I sat down with a nice piece of black board and a scratching tool and just started scratching whatever came into my head (as usual, it had to do with food!). There's something much less intimidating about a plain black surface than a plain white page. I also discovered that if you do happen to scratch too much, you can always dab a little black india ink on the spot and scratch again. Once it was all scratched, I used a little watercolor to add the finishing touches.

This piece was really just an experiment but I'm still rather proud of the result. It inspired me to think about illustrating a book or writing my own Zine. I'll explore those ideas more after I go get something to eat!