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I still can't get enough of sketching Rowan Oak. I went down to meet my sister and brother in law for them to see my show and did a quick sketch while Marian was reading every placard in the museum. I love the pop of the green roof of the barn amid the winter greyness, and I also loved the curve of the trees framing it. More Inktense pencils, since I'm on a kick with them right now, and watercolor on top.
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I took a day trip to Rowan Oak to call on my show last week and also spent a perfect afternoon walking through the woods to the University art museum and sketching my way back. I am continuing my love affair with the trees on Faulkner's property. I could see a whole second series of prints coming at some point.
I also checked in at the house and took a little video of my show Faulkner’s Trees. It is such a thrill to have my prints in this amazing place.
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I have always loved those golden age British mysteries with a map at the front. Probably because my dad collects maps and often hand drew ones for us to follow along with from the back seat on family vacations. Since all the trees in the exhibition at Rowan Oak are actually on the grounds of Faulkner’s home, I thought it would be fun to give people the opportunity for a self guided scavenger hunt to compare the prints with the originals.
There are no prizes, but if there were, there would definitely be extra credit for Portrait III, which is by far the trickiest to spot.
There are no prizes, but if there were, there would definitely be extra credit for Portrait III, which is by far the trickiest to spot.
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Every show I do I get a last minute wild hare to do some extra project to go with it. For WAMA it was doing an entire show catalog called Hints of Gladness. This time, with the show hanging on Monday, it was a much more manageable project. I had kept the artist statement quite brief, and I decided to typeset it and print a small edition of handmade ones. Most of the fonts I have are limited in the numbers of letters, but this Parsons 30 point set had JUST enough letters and was a lovely size to show up in a frame and hold its own space. It has the added delight of the fancy, super high ascenders (the "ls" and "hs" that reach up well above normal height), so I used them for the first line before going back to the normal set for the rest of the paragraph. It was a satisfying one day project, and this morning
I will get it in a frame and have it ready to hang with the rest of the show on Monday. I've also carved and printed a small gallery card for folks coming through the museum to pick up and have my information available. This is one of the handful that print two tone when I add a second color once the first is established. I love the variegated effect. I usually get three or four of these before the inks blend to a solid color again, so most of the cards will be a little less wild, but I always love these the best.
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My main work lately has been my upcoming Faulkner's Trees exhibition. I'm trying to get final prints of everything, get started on the framing, and finish carving the last two prints. I'm working slowly with my fatigue making an unwelcome return, but I'm chipping steadily away at it. We haven't set a hang date yet, and I'm grateful for Rowan Oak being flexible. It will go up some Monday in June so it's in time for the Faulkner scholarly conference that meets there in July. I'm so grateful to them for wanting my work for that.
So carving and printing every morning while I'm fresh. There has been lots of tea involved.
So carving and printing every morning while I'm fresh. There has been lots of tea involved.
I've got the first couple in frames already. It's nice not to leave all of that till last, since it's my least favorite part of the process.
This is the last piece I'm working on. It's three colors, and I'm carving on the last block now.
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I haven’t been sketching this week, and I’m missing it, but I’ve been getting some good work done on a new print for my Rowan Oak show next year. This is an especially complex piece. I had a lot of colors I wanted to include, and I hate to carve and print more than three blocks per print. So laying it out got complex, and I’m mixing more than one color for each block, but I loved the sketch I did of this tree, and it’s worth the aggro. I’m doing a series of color proofs as I keep refining the carving as well. At top is the best one so far. The key block is usually all black for my prints, but that was too harsh in this case, so for the top layer I’ve added a brown tree trunk for the cedar and softened to more gray around the edges. You can see the all black version at the bottom of the three proofs together just below. On the middle one I went too grey away from the tree and lost definition on the building. this one I think is the closest to what I want, but I need to clean up some carving, especially in the tree and the building. I’ve also added a snapshot of the three blocks together. The orange green goes first, then the grey of the building, tree, and grass along with the green of the cedar. Finally the black of the tree, the cedar trunk, and the definition of the building go on top.
Here is the original sketch with the first layer of the print.
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I finally got back out of town again yesterday, and it felt so good just to mix up my scenery a little bit. I was exhausted by 3, made it home about 4:30, but good progress.
The cemetery needs morning light for Faulkner's grave, so I went there first and sketched the top overview sketch. Walking out, I spotted a charming St. Francis statue and stopped to sketch him too. I added Henry next to him in the evening (crashed out from all day daycare while I popped down to Mississippi).
The other two sketches are both with a limited palette, testing out ideas for prints more than trying to be full paintings, or even sketches, themselves. I used walnut ink and a dip pen to start and added watercolor on top in just a few colors. It felt good to be in that space again, see friends there, and have a day out.
The cemetery needs morning light for Faulkner's grave, so I went there first and sketched the top overview sketch. Walking out, I spotted a charming St. Francis statue and stopped to sketch him too. I added Henry next to him in the evening (crashed out from all day daycare while I popped down to Mississippi).
The other two sketches are both with a limited palette, testing out ideas for prints more than trying to be full paintings, or even sketches, themselves. I used walnut ink and a dip pen to start and added watercolor on top in just a few colors. It felt good to be in that space again, see friends there, and have a day out.
