Beyond Printmaking: So Many Bunnies

 

For spring I spent a few evenings sketching rabbits (one lives in my yard and I have been watching for its tracks in the snow all winter)

I carved and printed a few of my favorite bunny images from the sketch sessions and loved how they turned out. Black and white is crisp and lovely!

 I wanted to enhance the block prints with some pen and ink. Sometimes I miss being able to draw and be spontaneous -- printmaking can become repetitive and predictable and careful - so I started adding pen and ink to the prints.

  

 Then, because it is spring after all, I felt like there needed to be some color, something fresh! So out come the water colors...

My favorite results are the ones that combine a little bit of everything. And now I have more bunnies than I can count....

Carved Grotesques

current series of gargoyle inspired block prints and stamps

I've had a long running fascination with gargoyles: when I was young I watched the animated cartoon series on television and as an adult I've taken photos of "carved grotesques" (as they are also known--which totally fits the idea of my block prints perfectly!) wherever I have had the fortune to find them.  While I  knew the function of most gargoyles (serving, in addition to mere ornamentation, as a downspout for rain water to keep buildings from damage)  I only recently read of the practice of using anthropomorphized creatures on buildings (especially churches) to assist in converting Pagans to Christianity...  because in medieval times creatures had been attributed various mystical powers... and so these creatures were carved and have adorned public spaces for years, even centuries... and now I come along to continue the legacy in my small way, conveying my own perspective on them. As I'm coming to realize, these themes we use as artists are deep rooted and repeat without our always being aware of it.  I guess I am still that grade schooler loving the dark mystery of watchful sentries hovering above...

tower of london

miller and paine building lincoln nebraska

near mirror lake st petersburg florida

 

 

 

 

 

cemetery near dublin, ireland

state theater st petersburg florida

gargoyle screen print on shirts

when i see this, i make this

I recently spent a weekend in Palm Beach/West Palm Beach for an art event and was amazed by the hedges and shrubbery walls in use. It gave everything such a green lush yet private feel. And it reminded me of my love of strange topiary.  A good friend lives near a house with one monolithic shrub out front that the owner must pass thru to enter the front door. It seems magical like Edward Scissorhands was there.  If only....

it's the little things

as a kid in summer one of the most remarkable things to see for me was a praying mantis in the yard...  sure we had daddy long legs and fire flies but a mantis was a specialty, uncommon and exciting.  i guess i've never gotten over that as i've made many mantis inspired artworks as an adult, all without realizing any pattern. who knew i was repeating myself? apparently true inspiration maintains itself over decades. and who wouldn't be inspired by such magical things as a mantis?

swamp art or a brief musing on ferns

ferns are an overlap that i have found in mossy forest and oozy swamp and in my own backyard in every state i've lived...  i like their nearly universal knack survival. i've seen them in volcanic craters in hawaii, with sulphur gas coming from nearby cracks, their tendrils creeping up to the surface... in greenhouses they are exotic winter indulgences. they make me a little less uncomfortable in the humid florida air. they are green and tender yet tough and tenacious and threaten to take over their surroundings which isn't an entirely bad thing in my opinion.  here's to ferns. prehistoric and modern. quaint yet potentially sinister. making the best of wherever they are.

they also bring to mind a tale from my creative hero edward gorey, the evil garden.  which if you haven't read it you should.