It's World Migratory Bird Day!

It's migration season! All around the world, creatures large and small are on the move. In truth, migration isn't just "a spring thing" or "a fall thing," because the diversity of migration strategies is as broad as the diversity of animals that migrate! Short distance, long distance, elevational... North to south, east to west. Some ocean creatures even migrate vertically, living at different depths of the sea at different times of year.

Personally, I love the spring migration of birds. After a long, gray winter, it's so fun to suddenly see bright flashes of color in the landscape. Today a Baltimore oriole came through my yard for the first time, and yesterday I saw yellow warblers and common yellowthroats.

This year migration seems extra-delightful. It's a reminder that even if human movements are restricted at the moment, the rest of the natural world is going about business as usual.

In a typical year, today is a day that would see hundreds of events across the globe celebrating World Migratory Bird Day! Back in January, when I revealed the poster art I created, none of us knew that we'd be gathering digitally, but the folks at WMBD have gone all out to bring us a virtual festival! All day long they'll be streaming programming on Facebook!

I put together a couple of short videos that they'll be sharing on their social media channels today, but you can get a first peek at this one right now! In it I share a look at how I created the art for the poster, and a short demonstration of the reduction linocut process.

Linocut in Progress: The third color pass... for Print Day in May!

Alrighty, then! It seems like there's some actual progress happening in the studio! Amazing.

The new linocut in progress is another long, skinny format.... the same dimensions of the harlequin duck piece that I finished back in March before the world went topsy-turvy.

This image has a fair amount of white in it, also, so there was some carving to do before I printed the first color. Here's the pale, transparent blue first pass:

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 1

Again.. these funky skinny formats are hard to see, but these images are a little bit bigger if you click on them.

As often happens, the first color pass seemed like it might be too dark, but I decided to just charge ahead, pretending to be confident that the contrast will sort itself out once some darker values are set down.

The second color pass was a transparent gray made from scraps of the blue plus a little packet of a sort of lavender-gray that was leftover from the Canada goose piece finished a couple of weeks ago.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 2

So far so good. These first two colors still seem a little dark, but the next color pass should sort that out. It's going to be quite a bit darker, and visually that should appear to lighten the previous.

But first! Saturday was the annual Print Day in May celebration, and printmakers all around the world were busy working in their studios and sharing images of their activities on social media. I decided to be brave and a present a short LIVE program on Facebook... because... why not? I knew I wanted to share a little information about my process, but I also wanted to be able to print during the program. I carved like mad on Friday to be ready to print the third color pass.

Hey look! It's me in my studio... with Presston! (He's the big steely-featured beast next to me.)

It took me a few minutes to sort out the audio and commenting controls when the live broadcast started, but once I got going it was fun to share what was happening in the studio, and really fun later to hear from folks far and near who had tuned in. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to hang out with me!

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 3

And, whew! Printing went smoothly.  As I had hoped, the blue and gray of Steps 1 and 2 now appear less contrasty and more connected to the white areas, and oooh.... what's that? By golly, I think I see the silhouettes of two birds starting to appear. (Secret insider info: There will be more than two birds in this image, but can you tell how many yet?)

So now it's back to the carving table. It feels like I might be able to get through this print in fewer than 10 color passes... but then I thought that on the last image and didn't quite make it. However it goes, I feel like I've got a good start, and I'm looking forward to moving this along this week.

There will be a few distractions, though.. as this week we're also gearing up for World Migratory Bird Day! The official day is May 9, although WMBD celebrations take place all year long in different parts of the world. Unfortunately many events have had to go virtual this spring, but the folks at WMBD and Environment for the Americas will be working hard to share lots of fun information online. Who knows... you might even see a thing or two pop up from me next weekend... stay tuned!

World Migratory Bird Day: The film!

Well... not film, really. And I guarantee it's not Oscar-winning material. But I put together a little 4-minute video about my linocut process for the World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) poster. Basically I propped up my phone, shot some footage, and taught myself how to use iMovie. (Thank goodness for YouTube tutorials!) Considering I put it all together in less than a day, I think it turned out okay!

Actually... working on it seemed to awaken some latent film-making-wannabe gene... but who has time to start a whole new career right now? I'll leave it to the experts, but I hope you enjoy this just the same.

World Migratory Bird Day 2020!

Embiggenable with a click!

At long last we are settled on a poster design for this year's World Migratory Bird Day! Twelve linocut birds connect conservation efforts across the world, and hopefully bring smiles to bird-lovers along the way.

I'm honored and excited to be part of this year's global conservation education campaign. While the "official" date will be celebrated in the Americas on May 9, there are hundreds of events taking place throughout the year. For the poster design I created twelve different linocut birds-- species of focus for this year's theme. The birds were printed in black on watercolor paper and then hand-painted. (I also painted the map!) Watch for a video about this later this week!

In addition to the poster there will be t-shirts, stickers, buttons, temporary tattoos.... the works! Items will be available through the WMBD shop.... I'm guessing maybe late February. (Posters go to print early in the month.) The website also provides lots of resources for event organizers, so if you'd like to celebrate in your own neighborhood, the folks at WMBD can help you out!