Color from Food and Yarn

Knit print... drawn from shadows on the knitting needles (in the round) and ball of yarn. This was a printing experiment. Next time I'll use white paper and other ink colors. (not too crazy about the green ink!) Was a fun print tho, I have another one to show soon, I'm doing a series of these.

I'm definitely not a 'foodie' or even much of a cook but I do love the colors of fruit and vegetables. Was planning on making strawberry shortcake this week... the kids have never had it before. (hmm, how could I incorporate chocolate to get them to eat it?? :)

Winter Madness... Dreaming of Spring

At the Lake Lodge

Bird on the Head

Flower Goddess

Been working on my series of ladies and having so much fun looking at botanical books and birds. These ladies are/were suffering from winter madness and make themselves 'right' by getting their gardens in order. I have more in the works and will share their progress.

Unfinished Garden Ladies

These paintings are unfinished, naturally... but here's some progress. I have a theme going about dreaming of planning a garden during the long winter months. Autobiographical? Yes, absolutely. It's no secret spring can not come fast enough for moi. And I'm going to paint about it. The second one, with dog doesn't have any garden theme yet. Not sure what will happen with that one. There are more to come! Have a happy Friday!

Ooh, I was featured on a lovely blog called Whimsy House Goodness...you can check it out here. (Thanks so much, Molly, for the mention!)

Sketchbook Catch-up

Lulu in a scarf

At the beach

Mama and son

Today I'm catching up on Sketchbook Thursday. These are just drawing paper and buckle like crazy when painted on but I like the idea of just painting my drawings without any planning or rules. I really want to do a big painting of the last drawing. Happy Tuesday.

Birthday Party with Daffodils

We had a fun little birthday for my nephew today who turned 8! Nothing like yummy chocolate birthday cake. We also had a big feast of salmon, shrimp, roasted yellow fin potatoes with red and yellow peppers... etc. But, my fave was the company and the spring flowers! Hope you are having a nice Sunday eve.

New Starts

Darn, I missed Sketchbook Thursday! Maybe over the weekend there will be a belated one - just wasn't in the cards. I updated the shop, so have a peek if you'd like!

Started a new series of ladies yesterday... felt so good to finally get going! They are for an upcoming show. Hope I can be happy with 'em when they're done :) I'm my worst enemy and critic sometimes. You know all those 'bad voices' inside giving critiques before you're at a 'stop, step back and squint' moment?? Painting is sort of love - hate with me. There must be painters out there who feel good and confident about their pieces in progress...

Sparkly Paint for St. Patrick's Day

Happy orange tulips, just for fun.

Bad news... one of my favorite kind of paints will no longer be produced... horrors! Twinkling H20s made by Luminarte is going out of business. Times are tough for them according to their web page, so they are filling orders until all the stock is gone. These are like watercolors but have more saturated color plus they are shimmering or sparkly. I'm so bummed about this. It seems most of my fave magazines and even Gocco supplies are caput.

Anyway, I spent the morning painting my dry prints... some for the etsy shop, some for shows. It's a fun and sort of mindless part of printing that I love. The prints look more vibrant and detailed with color and there's no doubt I couldn't live without a whole lotta color in my life!

Fruit and Papaya Milk Stand

Papaya Milk for sale here... this is the 4th Asian influenced woodcut for the upcoming show. Another Night Market stand of exotic Asian fruits... bitter melon, and giant carrot looking fruits. Sorry to say I don't know the names. I'm almost done with this one... just need to add and subtract a few more things. (I love the purple paper... it was left over and laying around the studio just begging to be printed on :)

Here's a crayon rubbing of a boy - from a drawing in the sketchbook. To the side, the Chinese characters I had to trace and reverse for the other carvings... makes him look like the boy from Empire of the Sun - I think so, anyway:) Have a happy Monday.

A Little Masterpiece

Here's a little work of art by my son. The title? 'Baby Muffin' - perfect, don't you think?

My daughter had to add a few embellishments once we displayed it on the wall. They like to collaborate and do so quite often.

Mr. Darcy, sunning himself.

We were able to enjoy a few rays of sunshine today... and made the most of it. Our first day of bike and scooter riding outside of the year! Wa-hooo!! Happy weekend.

Sketchbook Thursday - Elizabeth & Sylvia

Freshly drawn tonight... a few sketches. Sylvia is my old Ballet teacher - this was drawn from a vintage photograph of my own collection :) I'll be painting it tomorrow. Elizabeth is a creative lady... I just love the shape of her face and eyes. Have a peaceful night!

Dumpling Stand

The second Asian-themed woodcut... this lady made wonderful dumplings for sale at the Taipei night market. This is a test print - still a few things to tweak before it's done. I printed it on a map for fun.... it's actually tissue from a shoe box that was too cool to throw in the trash! Hopefully I'll finish the last 2 by Friday and test print... my thumb has a nice callous now :)

Taiwan Print on a Snowy Morning

Printing party last night in my studio!! This is one of 4 I'm working on for the April show... there is an 'East meets West' theme. (it's a work in progress) I finally referred to some photographs of a trip to Taiwan several years back. This is a footbridge (Cihmu Bridge) at Taroko Gorge. We drove on the stomach churning, 'fear for your life' East/West highway. (mostly one lane, carved on the side of a mountain... ) Amazing how drawing can be like time travel!

Front yard this morning. Where are all the daffodils and bulbs?! We had quite a blizzard yesterday... luckily only a few inches stayed.

New Mini-Sachets

Worked hard and fast on these yesterday... and actually got 'em done! Woo-Hoo!! A few of these will go in the shop and the rest I'm saving for 2 upcoming gallery shows. (I got invited to have a solo show at a local gallery. It's a venue for artists who have smaller works and will be for June!)

Today, I'll be working on my Asian-inspired woodblocks and walk the dog... although we've had flurries and cold wind here. BRRRR. Not much else going on! Happy Sunday.

Sleepy Puppy and a Bowl of Cherries

Cherries for Pierre

Mr. Darcy... he's a cutie but he's chewing his way through our house! Must get more raw-hide chews for him. My theory is he thinks he's a person already and only wants to eat people food.

The bowl of cherries is a new woodblock for spring - it's 4 x 4" and will double as a lavender sachet when printed on linen. My mom has quite an impressive cherry orchard in addition to all her lavender. (Summer is glorious at her place!) The bowl is dedicated to the dear departed Pierre - our Briard (French Sheepdog) who used to lounge under the cherry trees as we picked and caught some in his mouth. Never knew a dog who like cherries.... he also carefully ate the raspberries off the bushes. We miss him.

Sketchbook Thursday

With a new puppy in the house... how could I not sketch him?! Naturally, this is only possible when he is fast asleep on his blankie taking one of the many puppy naps of the day! These are in my Moleskine sketchbook (love 'em) and today, *gasp* I painted in it for the first time. Learned that the paper in the regular sketchbooks (as opposed to watercolor paper sketchbooks) is rather slick and had an almost 'waterproof' feel to it. The funny things one learns by accident :)

Carved Calligraphy

A practice page of Neuland style calligraphy. Love this style, though have never been formally taught this one - so, I'm a bit unsure and shaky about it. I like the way the tops and bottoms of the letters touch each other. I believe it's German in origin.

This was a difficult experiment... I actually did it a long time ago and printed it a few weeks ago. (gotta wait for the ink to completely dry before painting it.) The quote came from an old class list at 'Haystack' art center in Oregon... I can't remember who wrote it but it was honoring a great calligrapher who had passed on. I wrote out the calligraphy, traced and carved it in wood. It will probably be the last time I do it. Unless it's engraved in a hard wood like Cherry, the Shina wood just splinters when trying to carve fine details. Very frustrating! I think it turned out kind of nice...

A Little Landscape

Here's a new woodblock print that's 4x4" and colored with a touch of watercolor. I'm planning on doing the lavender mini-sachets with this size. It's done in sort of a 'sketchbook' style. It'll be going into the shop in the next few days!

Baby News...

Meet Mr. Darcy... the newest edition to our family. He's a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and super cute... but a little shy and sad to be away from his parents. We love him already!