That Is My Tool Box.

That is my tool box.

on the sides it has two little slips of paper one says "you are a good person" the other says "you are a fucking tool" the bottom has one of my prints that says "FUCK" printed on brown paper.

inside is: a strop, my speedball carving tool, a couple of X-acto knives, what's left of the fancy carving set  I bought when I realized I was going to be doing this for my BFA (note to the world: never loan out your tools, even if you think not loaning out your tools makes you look like an asshole, nobody notices your name carved in the handles and they will not give them back) other things: my engraving twist which is unsurprisingly nice for working up scratch board, my scratch board tool, a lump of eraser, some utility knife blades, some mechanical pencils, some mechanical pencil lead, an eraser and an Altoids Small's tin where I keep my tool-bits. (I like to think of it as the Altoid's sharps tin) the box interior is also decorated with a couple of these silly librarian-themed temporary tattoos.

I felt like showing some progress pictures today of something simple. I'm trying to get back into the swing of making things and what better opportunity for that than a three day weekend?

I am making several more of these simple herbaceous prints to be ready for my show at Dandelion Botanicals in April. it always pays to have a range of prices available, somebody who won't drop $200 on a piece might still want something for $20.

Cat of the West,

(part of my guardians of the four corners of the world series)

edition of ~5 linoleum print with handcoloring

showing you all this one today because I have just sold my last physical print of this edition. (whoo hoo for cash! people like cats, what can I say) it is part of a set of four I made out of hotdog-cut halves of the large linoleum blocks I use. they were partly inspired by the houses of Hogwarts, the cat, of course, is a miniature Griffindor lion. this is about as close as I get these days to fan-art and it's pretty well removed.

slavish dedication to a franchise at the expense of your own creative imagination can be just as limiting as insisting on being absolutely original at all times. take your ideas where you can, and try to do them as best you can.

 A Cat May Look At A Kinglet.

This is an example of the title driving the idea. I wanted to do something interesting with an extra half-block I had laying around and I was in a really pissy mood which was mostly directed at the people around me.

if you couldn't tell by the kitty-gon' cut-a-bitch expression in that cat's face.

anyways, this is another exploration into using color, and another example of why I don't spend a lot of time working with color. I naturally tend to use color like a printmaker, my impulse is to lay down blocks of a single color that may be built up or layered but still exist in blocks. I admit that this is unnecessary in a piece like this, where the color is applied by handcoloring with watercolor paint.

so I'm stuck in a bit of a bind when it comes to critiques, on the one hand I catch crap from painters for not using color like a painter if I'm going to paint at all. "it should be more blended, why do you still need those dark outlines, you need to look at real colors out in the world, blue isn't just a monochromatic blue, you can't just decide you want a color and take it right out if the tube"

valid, but annoying, I like my blocks of color.

and the printers, who don't consider hand coloring to be a legitimate printmaking process, because it is both applied directly by hand to the paper with out an intermediate step, and because it destroys the sanctity of a printed edition by introducing irregularities.

as if my color editions aren't irregular as all heck as it is.

storal of this mory, if you can't please everybody, you gotta please yourself.

Lantern.

12" by 15" linoleum block print, edition of 4.

(in retrospect I should have made as many as possible of this because it's pretty popular) this was meant to be a set of four (as these are a cut quarter of one of my usual blocks) that tied up the story a little bit, showing objects that are left behind or incidental to the various storylines of the whole deer-girl thing. I got as far as the lantern and the antler, I partway carved a seashell necklace on a rock with a starfish, and the bones of a rabbit being nosed by another rabbit would be the logical fourth one I guess, that or maybe the bowl the tree people own with four frogs swimming in it.

it is a set of two, because I ran out of time at the end of the year, I may carve and finish it anyways because I still have the blocks for the two I didn't print. (note to all'yall who may be worried about the exclusivity of my editions, I threw away all of my blocks after I graduated because they were gross and oily and I had no place to keep them where they would not seep vegitable oil all over everything, one more thing I like about acrylic ink)

moths to a candle flame, it's such a bad idea but it's so pretty, to navigate by the moon of your life and not the moon of the sky, and then it burns you up. so artsy and poetic no? such a classic, all of the item-series show items and animals interacting, and they are really just simple little things. 

so many stars though.

stars are a big thing for me. when I was a kid (and still) I really loved my glow-in-the-dark stars all over my ceeling and walls of my room, ever since I got to go on a semi-camping trip to the wilderness and saw what the sky really looks like away from all the danged light pollution I have been fascinated with the milky way. although I am not particularly interested right now in recreating the look of actual sky, I want that kind of Narnian feel of the familiar and unfamiliar at once. stars from a different sky. and I want that look of wilderness and inhuman landscapes and being able to see all the stars is a mark of that.

and then I carve them out, all five points, one at a goddamn time.

it's one of those things people don't tell you about being an artist, inspiration may be the spark that starts you, but your time and energy are the coal you have to burn if you want the steam engine of your artistic vision to reach the shores of proper physical fruition, and not crash on the unmerciful shores of conceptual art.

also, you have to train yourself to be receptive to inspiration, all the skill in the world does no good to nobody without that 2am magic.

Rabbit, Colored version, currently cherished in private collection.

(that's right I sell things)

Screen Prints!

alright these are the three screen prints I did for Ben Moreau's summer screen printing class that he liked so much he said it was better than a visit to the dentist for a root canal.

and what else could possibly be better than dentistry?

alright, these are a bit of a departure from my other stuff. I was just not feeling it during the summer after I made it into the BFA program when it comes to sticking to my "theme" and making art that would be useful for my BFA portfolio in the coming year. it was my first summer in Bellingham, I was mostly crippled all the hell, and sick of being pretentious and sad. So, I made OZ Fanart.

the first one is a reductive screen print of myself as Glinda the Good Witch of the South in her costume as she appears in the first OZ movie. it glitters. it is hard to convey just how much these things glitter in the sunlight like fairy-taffy made of pink and shimmer but they do. I would have to convert it into one of those glitter .gifs to give you an approximation of how nice they look.

this print was made with reductive screenprinting, which I have a pretty hard time controlling because I am like, comprised of 90% sloppy mess. I still love it.

the second one is of Christine as Ozma the rightful Queen of OZ. I was mostly trying out all different kids of techniques with this one, the swirls of the sky, the layers, the bajillion million layers and colors and the fact that it could still use a pattern on her dress. the gold bits also glitter.

this print was made through transparency processes, both using clear plastic and ink/paint/cutouts to expose the screens, and gobs and gobs of transparent base to give the inks character and clarity. (note her head flowers over the building)

third one: A Tribute For The Wizard.

photographic processes and fucking up repeatedly by not saving my progress lead to the end result you see here, this is Ben as the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz being displeased by our offering of One Good Print.

as he said in crit "YOU MUST HAVE AT LEAST FIVE PERFECT PRINTS!!"

everybody in class except for the Asian kid we never really saw posed for this.

first silhouette is Jake, then Brendan, then me holding aloft the golden print, then Allison and Stacey.

this class was good times.