Birds in Art and the big Project Postcard reveal

How was Birds in Art? It was great, of course! The opening weekend of the Woodson Art Museum's flagship show is always a highlight of the year. Let me show you!

The museum galleries were glowing when we arrived for a preview of the exhibition.  Take a look at one of the show galleries and see if you can find a linocut on the wall... (You can embiggen the photo by clicking on it.)

The quiet before the crush

The quiet time was short-lived, however. Check out the crowd at the Friday night opening reception! (And this is just one of the 5 galleries of the exhibition.)

Did you find the lino in the panorama photo at the top? Here's a hint in case you missed it:

That's a stunning relief engraving by Nicholas Wilson on the left
and the cut feather work of Chris Maynard on the right.
You'll have to figure out whose piece is in the middle all by yourself.

This year the Woodson Art Museum named Wisconsin sculptor Don Rambadt
the 2017 Master Wildlife Artist. 

A few weeks ago I teased Brush and Baren readers with a distorted image of two small prints I completed for this year's Project Postcard. Artists invited to exhibit at Birds in Art have the opportunity to donate one or two (or a dozen) 4 x 6" artworks, but asked not to sign them on the front of the image. The anonymous artworks are mounted in a "secret" room, and buyers are given just 60 seconds to enter the room and choose their prize. Proceeds from the project are used to purchase additional works from the exhibition for the museum's permanent collection.

I can reveal my offerings now that they've found new homes AND let you know that I've made these little hand-painted linos available on my website, so you can have one, too, if you like! The hummingbird is here, and the oriole is here. I have just a couple ready to go at the moment, but there will be more soon.

My Project Postcard entries.

Hey! I recognize that pelican!

There were delights outside the museum, too. (And not just in the amazing sculpture garden.) Look whose pelican linocut now graces the banners in the museum's parking area. Nifty, eh? I had seen a photo of them when they were installed last spring, but it was great to see them in person and prove to myself that they were real.

The warmth and fun of time spent at the Woodson with friends and colleagues will sustain me for a long time to come, which is a good thing because I have to get back to work!

UPDATE! This morning I received the great news that "Mooch Brigade," my piece in the exhibition, has been selected for the national tour! Look for it at these great venues in 2017-2019:

The Chicago Academy of Sciences, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum 
(December 16, 2017 ­– February 4, 2018)
Stamford Museum & Nature Center, Stamford, Connecticut 
(February 24 – May 28, 2018)
Cumming Nature Center, Rochester Museum & Science Center, Naples, New York 
(June 16 – August 13, 2018)
Newington-Cropsey Foundation, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York 
(September 4 – October 26, 2018)
Las Cruces Museum of Art, Las Cruces, New Mexico 
(November 20, 2018 – January 14, 2019)

"Mooch Brigade," reduction linocut, 18" x 18"
© Sherrie York

A brush to go with that baren

Progress on the little flower linocut has stalled this week for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that I've managed to catch a wee cold. My stuffy-headed fog precludes making good aesthetic decisions and I don't have a whole lot of stamina for standing at the press.

Luckily I've got some "bitty birds" to work on. These are small single-color linos that I hand-paint with watercolor, and since I've finished several batches of them previously most of the aesthetic choices have already been made. There's a fair amount of variety between each individual print, although I keep the general color palettes the same. But yikes! Which end of this brush thingy am I supposed to use to make marks? There's no sharp bit to tell me which end is up.

It will be nice to have a fresh set of these ready for the Colorado Field Ornithologists convention in early May. It's been several years since I've been able to attend and even longer since my schedule has allowed me to put together a presentation of work for the event.

It will be a great opportunity to catch up with some friends and to visit an area of the state that I rarely explore. Can you say scissor-tailed flycatchers and Mississippi kites? Just think of the potential new lino subjects!

But first it's time for another cup of echinacea tea and a fistful of vitamin C.

Birds, Prints, Snow (??).... must be Spring!

Yesterday was the first Global Big Day, a birding event sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Birders all over the world submitted their day's sightings to the eBird online database which, if you're not familiar with it, is a great way to keep track of your birding checklists and contribute to the scientific record at the same time. I just checked the status page, and as of this morning 8,886 people from 108 countries had submitted 25,254 checklists, featuring 4,751 species. Cool.

You might have noticed that I do a lot of linocuts featuring birds, so I'm sure it's no surprise that I've got birder tendencies. Since I've been using eBird for a long time participating in the Global Big Day was kind of a no-brainer. But rather than just record data from my usual patch I teamed up with an old friend to check out some additional locations.

The day started out lovely enough....

7:00 am. Blue skies and a few clouds.

 8:00 am. Oh, look! A pelican in perfect light! Maybe another lino?

By mid-day we were about an hour up the valley from home and the sky had turned gray and thick with clouds.

 Early afternoon. Loggerhead shrike. Definitely some lino potential here.

By 3:00pm there was no denying that some serious weather was on the way, so we piled back in the truck and headed south.

Some rain, but mostly SNOW. Not sticking yet, but will be soon.

The weather continued through the night, and this morning my neighborhood looked like this:

Snow in May is not unusual here, and during the time it has taken to type this post most of it has already disappeared. It's lovely, in a "seriously-can-we-just-get-back-to-green-please" sort of way.

But cold, wet, and gray days are good for painting little bird linos with cheery and colorful palettes, so that's what I'm up to now. As for birds, we ticked 71 species yesterday... including a few that I don't manage to see every year. Birds, prints, snow. No denying that it's springtime in the Rockies!

Bitty Birdies For the New Year

American Robin

 Alright, sports linocut fans. I finally finished painting enough of the "Bitty Birds" to put a set up on my Etsy store, Rio Salida Art.

Each image is approximately 3" x 5," printed on Arches 140# cold press watercolor paper and hand painted with an assortment of Holbein, Winsor Newton, and Sennelier watercolors.

It was fun to putter around with watercolors for a change, and a good warm-up for the extensive watercolor illustrations I'm working on for a client right now.

These are a few of my favorites, but there are 18 in all! (And only $20 a piece, totally giftable.)

I've got more ready to go in addition to the ones in the shop, but since they're all hand painted and variable I decided to put them up separately. (And hey... if you want a short cut to the store, there's a page on this blog that will take you there, too. Up there in the menu bar where it says, oddly enough... Etsy Store!)

Audubon's Warbler

American White Pelican

Barred Owl

Common Goldeneye

Wilson's Phalarope