i'm having so much fun!!

some more finished prints today. with the new ink from gamblin. i am having a blast with this. now if i could only keep the margins clean so i don't have to mount every print...i would like to show the edges of this beautiful paper...but i am a mess. i get so excited with the process that i can't even think about keeping it all tidy. my mother would be telling me to slow down and be neat if she were alive. "ruth claire, you need to stop being such a mess", she would have said. i will listen to her next time, i promise!!

my hope is that people will "get" these. that's the problem with abstracted images...people sometimes don't get it. i was thinking today that i am really into just trying to solve the problem of getting something that looks beautiful...i really don't care if it looks like something. i named both of these works "trees" because they remind me of sitting under a tree on a breezy day when the leaves overlap each other as they move, but i could have just as easily called them "composition in green and brown".

collaged monoprints

i have still been playing with the printmaking process i learned at shy rabbit in pagosa springs. i have been cutting up the prints and reassembling them onto wooden blocks. i am trying to make several at a time with the same color scheme and feel so the could be hung together. here are two examples of the new work. they are on 3x4.5" birch plywood that has been stained on the edges and back. i am thinking of also making some simple strip frames or putting them into a shadow box type frame. lots of possibilities. i am putting some on the website for sale. the ones that are just glued onto blocks as-is (a single print) are $35, and the collaged images are $45. can you guess which parts are collaged, and which parts are not? it's pretty hard to tell, and that's why i like it so much!!

i also ordered some new printing ink. it's made by gamblin, and is really intensely colored and i have found it is best knocked down with some transparent medium, also made by gamblin. it's oil-based, and about the same price as the speedball inks i have been using, but i think the quality is better. i just have to play with it for a while to understand the way it works. i also like that it comes in glass jars. it just seems cooler for some reason. don't know why...maybe because it seems old-fashioned or something.

monoprints!!

these are the monoprints i have been practicing since i finished the (amazing) class at shy rabbit in pagosa springs. i mounted them on 3x4.5" blocks of birch plywood so they can stand on a ledge or be hung on a wall with mounting hardware. i think they are pretty cool...i will be working on a whole new series this week...and will post the results when i am finished. they are printed with oil based block printing ink on hot pressed watercolor paper.

two new boxes

just finished the second box, a shrine to our lady with lots of fun stuff. it just seems when i am making shrines they turn out a bit brighter than my usual work. she just brings out the bright side of me i guess?? anyway, she can be hung on the wall or can just sit on a ledge. i am getting really good at making these with less glue and more screws. seems like they are just sturdier. i went out an bought myself a dremel tool for the studio so i can drill and sand to my heart's content. ahhhh, power tools. what an invention!!

wing tips

this is the full sized version of the gouache painting that appears on the site. i kinda got sick of boxes today, and decided to paint instead. i stayed small so i could finish in one day. so they are actually pretty small. the whole painting is only 5x7". it was good to paint again. maybe i'll do a series??

we got back from santa fe and taos on tuesday. saw tons of art, most really good and inspiring. loved jane sauer's gallery and nuart gallery on the canyon road. act 1 in taos had some nice aerial view paintings by dina worman.

time to sleep. it's been a long day at the office.