Online Puzzles with the Woodson Art Museum!

Some months ago the Woodson Art Museum, home of the spectacular annual exhibition, Birds in Art, starting sharing online jigsaw puzzles of work in their permanent collection. 

I have been deeply honored to have several of my pieces accessioned there over the years, so imagine my great delight when some of them started appearing as puzzles! There are presently four of my images on the Woodson puzzle page (right now they are the last four on the page, scroll down!), along with dozens of others. 

Here are the direct links to "my" puzzles. You can change the number and size of the pieces, as well as invite other people to play with you... so... have fun!

Cruisin' - (American White Pelican)

A Tern of the Tide (Common Tern)

Shower With a Friend (Wood Ducks)

Oops. I guess I don't have a big image of this.
Ripples (mallard)

Cruisin' to Birds in Art!

Ah, Jury Results Day.

My groggy self rolls over in bed and then suddenly my eyes fly open, my heart starts pounding, and I stumble towards the computer and my inbox with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Which will it be? The "Congratulations" email... or the "Sorry, Maybe Next Time" email?

Juried exhibitions are fickle beasts... which is a nice way of saying they can be pretty much a crapshoot. As a general rule I don't apply to a lot of juried shows, but there are a few with long histories of consistent excellence to which I do submit work, and then wait nervously for the outcomes.

At this point in my career I know that a rejection does not necessarily reflect the quality of my work, because these major exhibitions receive an overwhelming number of outstanding submissions which must be whittled down to a cohesive show by a small group of jurors. It sounds a bit cliché to say that acceptance is an honor, but the "Congratulations" email means I've been invited to share my work alongside that of respected colleagues, and an honor is precisely what I've received.

So, yes. I am honored to announce that my reduction linocut "Cruisin'" has been accepted to this year's Birds in Art exhibition at the Woodson Art Museum in Wisconsin. This will be the 40th Anniversary of the museum's flagship show, which is widely recognized as the premiere bird exhibition in the country.

(Insert happy dance here.)

Linocut in Progress: A pelican looking for a title (and maybe for love)

With one more deadline looming I decided to just push on through and finish the pelican linocut this weekend. At about midnight:thirty this morning I wrapped it up. My hands and feet and neck are tired from marathon printing sessions, but I'm satisfied. And today I am finally catching up with mundane things like laundry and grocery shopping, which were sadly neglected while I marched to the sound of deadline drums.

Of course now it needs a title. I'm leaning towards Cruisin', but I'm open to other suggestions. Cruisin' is a double reference to this bird's slow-but-steady movement across the water and to the activity of spring. This pelican is sporting the beak bumps that develop during the breeding season, so clearly our bird is cruisin' for a mate.

Here's how the last steps unfolded:

Step 8

(Oops, I don't even remember what happened in this step. Please stand by while I go look at the previous post and figure out what's different now.)

Ah. Okay. Focus has turned to the water. The existing grays were pretty cool, reflecting sky, but now the reflections are taking on the tone of bare trees and need warming up. A little brown was added and printed transparently.

Step 9

More water reflections, also warmer in tone. Feeling pretty good, but it stills needs some deeper darks.

Step 10

And here they are. It's so, so close now... (and at this point it was about 10:30pm). All that remains are the darkest bits of the bird's primary feathers and their reflection in the water. Spot inking shouldn't take THAT long, should it?

I cut an inking mask from clear mylar and used it to limit ink to a small area. It took me a surprisingly long time to find just the right tone. It needed to be darker than anything else in the image, but not SO dark that was a harsh contrast.

I didn't take a photo of it, but I also cut a hole just like this one in newsprint sheets the size of the full block. A newsprint sheet was placed across the block each time it was run through the press to prevent the un-inked areas from damaging prints.

And finally, the finished piece. I'm feeling pretty darn good about this one. :-) It's a completely different color palette for me and an exercise in pushing the complexity of water as far as I can.

"Cruisin'" (maybe), reduction linocut, 18 x 18"

I'm definitely ready for a couple days break from printmaking madness, and I've got some exciting news coming up about how I'm going to be spending my summer, but first? I need a nap.

Linocut in Progress: A beak and some shadow

Yesterday was full of lovely affirmations of my work, but the glow doesn't last very long when there's work to be done. Back to the carving table and press I go!

An ochre-y (yes, that's absolutely a color, 'cause I said so) yellow needed to be applied to the bird's beak, so I employed one more pass with the inking mask .

Pelican linocut, Step... um...six, I think.

Sorry again about the poor photo quality. The good news is that the season is changing, the bad news is that it means my semi-consistent light source is also changing. I need to find a new place to pin up work in progress.

It's nice to be able to print several small areas of color in a relatively short amount of time, but it's not very satisfying in the overall progression of the image. I have done a lot of carving! I want to see some results! Thankfully I received some with the next pass.

Pelican linocut, Step 7

Now we're getting somewhere. Suggestion of details in the beak, some more dimension in the bird's body, and some tonal variety in the water.

Now it's back to the carving table again, and I think I'll be there for a while. The water reflections are downright ridiculous and I'm finding it challenging to find the right balance of detail. Too much and I'm afraid it will get visually confusing, too little and it might seem too flat.

Linocut in Progress: Little bits

After my last update I spent several days wrapping up an illustration project, but yesterday went happily back to the carving table and created lots of lino crumbs.

As luck would have it, however, all that carving didn't really have any bearing on what was printed next.

The area around the pelican's eye will be yellow, but it's a tiny shape... barely 1/8" wide and 1/4" long in an image that's 18 x18 inches overall. To ink up the entire block for that tiny shape would be a ridiculous waste of time and ink, so instead I decided to apply ink directly to the prints via pochoir, or stenciling. 

Applying ink via pochoir, or stenciling

Here I have cut the shape out of a piece of clear acetate. The black lines are marked on the acetate stencil to help me place it correctly. Ink is pounced directly on to the prints with a small stiff brush.

Et voila:

Pelican linocut, Step 3

I cut a second shape and applied orange in the same manner:

Pelican linocut, Step 4

Next, I carved some very small bits out of the face and then printed a yellow-orange. The shapes to be printed were much larger, so this time I used my acetate sheet as an inking mask instead of a stencil. I placed the mask over the block rather than over the print and rolled ink across it. Then I ran the block through the press as usual.

Pelican linocut, Step 5

One or two more small areas remain to be worked in the bird's beak, and then the color work for this image will be finished! Everything else will be shades of gray. Geez, I hope this works.