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Here are a bunch of sketches from my recent time at Country Workshops, a woodworking school on a beautiful farm in North Carolina. It's one of my favorite places to paint. Above is Big Boy in my lap, one of my very favorite cats.
Below are the cows I kept drawing. Both those scenes are looking out the window from the work table I use when I'm there.
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They let me have my favorite work table in the window overlooking the mountains, and I did some sketching from there, played my banjo, and drank tea. And also just enjoyed hanging out with everyone.
The moonrise was stunning one night. I don't think it's one of my best efforts, but I still like to have pages in my journal to remind me of special moments, even when the drawings themselves weren't what I had hoped.
One of the bookstores even has a wine bar. I sat in an aisle with a lovely book on the Shakers and ate some dark chocolate.
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I'm also enjoying revisiting a special place. This painting and the moonrise one (last blog entry) are both from watercolors I did at the woodworking school Country Workshops. My friends Drew and Louise Langsner live there and run the school, and their farm is one of the loveliest places I know. They periodically invite me to visit them and paint for a bit, and I always look forward to my time there. It's a fruitful place for my art.
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I've got a new painting underway for my fall exhibition at Dixon Gallery and Gardens. This is an evening sky I painted in watercolor when I was in North Carolina last fall. I've already done a print from that sketch, but the image continues to call my name. My favorite thing to paint in oils is big, lush skies. That medium does skies better than anything else I work in. I've enjoyed getting back into oils for this exhibition.
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So here are a few that are finished and ready. I have several more I'm still getting final prints of but that are mostly or fully carved. Above is Rainbow Lake at Overton Park.
Below are two images from Country Workshops, the wood working school I house sit for occasionally and visit friends at in between times. It's one of the wellsprings of my work over the last dozen years.
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Here's a new block I've almost got done this week. It's a scene from Country Workshops, a grove of trees I've painted several times over the years. I intend this print for my fall show at Dixon Gallery and Gardens.
This is the first color proof, but it's close to what I want. I'll do a little clean up carving, and I think I'll hand paint a blue sky, just to see what that would look like. I'm really trying to keep a lot of these prints to just two blocks, though. It's a huge addition of labor each time you have to mix ink, hand roll each one, line it up, and print it on the proof press. Two times is way better than three, but the blue sky in the original sketch is pretty integral, so I'm going to try it.
Here's the underneath block. I roll the green and yellow at the same time, using one block there instead of separate printings.
Here are the two blocks together along with the original sketch.
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The type printed on top was the last step, after the original block
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The downside of printmaking for me is the added technicality. I love making images, but prints are more complicated than just brushing paint on canvas. I still struggle some with registration issues and occasional press maintenance, but sharpening my gouges is the hardest ongoing issue for me.
I'm incredibly lucky to be friends with John Kraus, a toolmaker, fiddler, and all around great guy. John teaches tool making at Country Workshops and John C. Campbell Folk School, among others. Once a year or so he's kind enough to put a fresh edge on my gouges that I then gradually fail to maintain until I need help again the next year.
This year he not only sharpened everything for me (photo above), but he tempered a couple of the blades that were too hard to sharpen well (below).
John's partner is Nancy Darrell, a fellow printmaker with a background in pottery. I got my Line-O-Scribe proof press from her a couple of years ago (which has changed my life), and we have a great time comparing work and talking shop.
This trip we also went out and sketched together, painting by the pond on the Countey Workshops campus next door. I did a couple of quick watercolors and enjoyed just sitting in the sunshine a while.
Afterwards I got to play music with John, and Nancy had been kind enough to invite Drew and Louise Langsner over from next door at CW, so we had a lovely dinner with all my friends up there at once. That pair of farms is a real haven for me, thanks to kind friends and a beautiful landscape. I feel lucky to be a regular visitor.
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Above is the French Broad river, as seen in Hot Springs, NC, and below is one of my favorite trees at Country Workshops.
