Announcing Print!subscription 2011!
I’m happy to announce Print!subscription is returning in 2011! Prints will be much larger and with 3 different subscription choices, you’ll have more control over the subject matter. As a thank you to all of you who have made Print!subscription 2010 such a success, renewing subscribers will receive their first month free, receiving a refund either through paypal or by check. Check out all the details here.
Thanks for your support!
Carolyn
November ‘Winter Migration’
'Winter Migration'
In central Texas the first sign of winter is not dropping temperatures, but the arrival of the birds. It’s not as creepy as Hitchcock might lead you to think, but it’s really very strange and beautiful to see a huge mass of migratory birds in an urban setting. I wanted this soft-ground etching to be simple and slightly whimsical, but also carry the feeling of the starkness of winter.
mixing up wintery ink
birds on the press!
the flock drying
the birds love grocery parking lots
October ‘Autumn’
I love autumn; cooler weather, pumpkins, apple cider, renewed interest in knitting projects, but here in central Texas there is something missing: leaves! Most of the trees around Austin are live oak trees, which are beautiful and gnarly, (the kind you would imagine inhabiting in fairy tales), but they keep their leaves all winter. Admittedly this makes winter less depressing, but I do miss leaves crunching underfoot, swirling softly through the air and dancing across the road. I love when yellow leaves collect in the gutters and it looks like the streets are paved with bright gold.
I wanted this month’s print to look of a page out of a plant specimen book. An iconic, simple celebration of one of my favorite things about fall, beautiful autumn leaves.
I made ‘Autumn’ by coating a cooper etching plate with soft ground then placing a leaf on the ground and running it through the press. The soft ground picked up the delicate pattern of the leaf.
September “Aspen”
Aspen soft-ground etching with watercolor
Colorado is well know for its snowy winter beauty, but the shimmering aspen trees and Rocky Mountains are equally stunning in the summer. We spent Labor Day weekend visiting with family in Summit County. Our accidental, gorgeous, 10 mile hike from Vail to Midturn helped inspire this month’s print, Aspen.
Aspen is a soft ground etching, finished with hand coloring with watercolor.
August “Bourbon county farm”
Oof! How did it get to be September? August found me making the long road trip from Austin up to Kentucky to visit family and friends. The rolling hills of Kentucky seemed even more lovely after a year away. Pam took us out to a friend’s farm in Bourbon county to see their new foals and it was so beautiful I knew it had to be this month’s print. I made monotypes because I wanted the technique to match the simple, rustic tenor of the landscape.
July “Stone House”
July’s print, Stone house, is a detail from a larger etching that is the first in a new series of Palestinian landscapes. This beautiful, abandoned old stone house, in the village of Awarta, is framed by a furiously blooming almond tree and bright blue sky. I was drawn to the contrast of the vibrant natural world to ruins of the old house and the creaminess of the stone against the bright pink of the almond flowers. I may add another plate to the final image, a proof is below.
June “Spanish Dagger”
Spanish Dagger
Since moving to Texas last year, I’ve become a bit obsessed with succulent plants. Maybe because I had never really seen many before, or if I did I never really payed them much attention. There is just something about the deliciously strange, jurassic beauty of succulents that I find mesmerizing. They seem like they are out of another time and place. And they remind me of dinosaurs, who doesn’t love dinosaurs? Yuccas are some of my favorites. They are tons of different varieties, but most tend to have a leafy base that produces delicate, beautiful flowers on a tall, slender stalk. Spanish Dagger’s are one of my favorite types of yucca with spiky leaves and creamy, milky flowers that hover above on a slim stalk every spring.
the copper plate, ready to start printing
plate smeared with ink
wiped with tarlatan
proofing
final proof!
After finishing ‘Spanish Dagger’, I started on a series of larger etchings of succulent plants. I’m still working on these, but here’s a peak at a few proofs.
a larger version of Spanish Dagger
Ocotillo. These guys were all over Big Bend. They remind me of giant coral or seaweed.
Red Yucca, from my front yard. They have beautiful delicate pink flowers.
May “Sotol, Big Bend”
-
"Sotol, Big Bend"
Last month I went to Big Bend National Park and was mesmerized by the haunting, barren west Texas landscape. The starkly beautiful desert landscape was full of all sorts of fascinating succulent plants; they looked so jurassic I kept expecting a brontosaurus to bend down and nibble on one of their giant stalks! In the middle of this desert there’s an isolated mountain range, the Chisos, that supports an alpine ecosystem. It’s pretty wild to see a prickly pear and pine tree growing side by side. The drive up to the Chisos Basin is peppered with fields of sotol plants, whose stalks can reach 9 to 15 feet high! They were the inspiration for “Sotol, Big Bend” .
- press glamour shot
hot off the press!
I decided on a soft copper brown and hand coloring with watercolor
April “Nejmah”
-
-
-
-
"Nejmah"
One of the things I loved about traveling in Palestine and Turkey was the breathtaking Islamic tile work in the interior of the mosques. I’ve had a long standing obsession with decorative ceramic tile (thanks to a trip to Spain in college), and it has only been encouraged further by my own futile and clumsy attempts in the medium. “Nejmah” is inspired from a tile found on the building outside of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. “Nejmah” means ‘star’ in Arabic and refers to the eight pointed star that is a common repeating motif in Islamic art.
- the block before printing
-
- ready to print!
-
- mmmmm, symmetry!
-
- in the drying rack
the pattern for "Nejmah" is based on the yellow tile under the arches
March “Taybeh”
olive trees along the main road in Taybeh
It feels like I just dropped Taybeh in the mail, how did it get to be mid April? Sorry for the delay! Taybeh the first etching in new series I’ve started that’s inspired by traveling around the Middle East with Bob. Taybeh is a Palestinian Christian village in the West Bank, which has ties to Jesus (he hung out there on the way to Jericho) and Saladin who re-named the village after encountering its inhabitants (‘taybeh’ means good/pleasant/delicious/friendly in Arabic) and is now the home of Palestine’s only brewery, the Taybeh Brewing Company. It’s also home to the breathtaking Byzantine Church of St. George.
Palestine is covered in gnarled and beautiful olive trees, but these, growing along the main road headed away from Taybeh stuck in my mind.
Below are photos of the stages of the etching:
I started off with the olives trees
then added an aquatint for the rocks and road
then I tried to work out the colors:
green made the desert look a little too much like Ireland...
getting closer...
...a little watercolor brings out the sky and tree trunks.
