Exhibition News: I am officially overwhelmed!

"Shower with a Friend," reduction linocut, 15" x 15"

If you are an artist, or if you hang around with artists, you are probably familiar with the phenomenon of The Juried Show. Artists submit "slides" (usually digital images these days) of their work for consideration by a juror or jurors, who review all submissions and select which pieces will be included in an exhibition.

Juried shows can be, if you'll excuse the expression, a bit of a crap shoot. Even well-established professionals with consistently fine work and impressive exhibition histories can, and do, get "The Small Envelope" (rejection notice). So when I decided to enter a few "new-to-me" shows this year I had high hopes but moderate expectations.

Um, well. As of this afternoon I am officially six-for-seven on The BIG Envelope.

"Ripples," reduction linocut, 12" x 9"

This is wonderful news, of course, but logistically overwhelming. I have two delivery deadlines in the next two weeks and four more in August... all of which have have different requirements for framing and shipping. And did I mention I'm going to be out of town from July 8 through August 6?

Upping the ante this week:

The Wildlife Experience in Art, Rocky Mountain Animal Artists at The Wildlife Experience, Parker, Colorado. Show opens September 28 with a "Wildlife Art and Wine" event.

Shy Rabbit Print International IV, at Shy Rabbit Contemporary Arts, Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Show opens July 27.

More details of the ever-evolving show schedule are on the Exhibition Schedule page here at Brush and Baren.

Linocut in progress: Columbine final step

Okay then! One final step put a little more interest in the lower left corner of the columbine reduction linocut, and I'm going to call it finished.

Step 10: Adding back a bit of dark.

Finished!

Working a large edition like this one was a good experience. On the one hand I felt I had more latitude to experiment with color, but once I settled on that color it was harder to maintain over a long run. In the end I think I'll have an edition of 40 from the original 50.

Work in the print studio is liable to be a bit erratic over the next couple of months, for reasons both personal and professional. I think it's safe to say there won't be ANY new prints in July, as I'll be on the road for workshops for most of the month. I'm aiming to get something underway here through the remainder of June, but we'll see how it goes. I've got contract work in process, an art fair to prepare for, and a few tasks far more odious which will require energy and attention.

But stay tuned! If nothing else, it might be time to start posting a bit more fieldwork than I have been lately. My friend Debby Kaspari is in Panama with her sketchbooks right this minute and the images she's posting are making me pretty darn twitchy to get after it myself. You can see what Debby's been up to over at Drawing the Motmot. Tell her I said hi!

Linocut in progress: Columbine Part 4

Still poking along here with the columbine linocut.

I decided that I wanted more color variety in some of the stems, so I took a deep breath and put another lighter color over the existing dark.

Step 8

Looks a wee bit scary, doesn't it?

But never fear, most of it went away in the next pass. I carved a few stems and then printed a dark blue-green to light yellow-green pass to get the image back on track.

Step 9 (Sorry about the wet ink glare.)

Might just be one pass left, I'm not sure. I like the feeling of the background blend now, but I would like to define some more foliage in the lower foreground. Could be just a partial blended roll will do the trick.

What a difference a color pass makes.

Linocut in progress: Columbine Part 3

Who was it that said, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans"?

There's a lot of "life" happening here at the moment, which is putting a bit of a damper on my studio time and focus capacity. I had hoped to have this columbine linocut finished by now, but it's just poking along. Ah well...it is what it is, I guess.

Step 6

Here's a second darkish pass to start defining the background. I've decided that the upper background isn't going to have much more activity than it already has, although there will still be some darker bits in the lower background. Still have to sort that out.

Step 7

It's not particularly "normal" to go back and add a lighter color over a darker, but I neglected to work the centers of the flowers before I moved on to the background. It's okay, though... I rather like the tonal variety I got here. If I wanted a more solid yellow I could put a second layer here, but I think they'll be okay as is.

I might be able to wrap this up in two more color passes... it all depends on how the next one plays out. The background feels a bit too bright to me, so I'm going to try to tone it down. We'll see!