I did a watercolor commission this morning, but the rest of the day so far I've been editioning prints. This involves cleaning any ink smudges off the margins, and signing, numbering, and dating each set.

I also have a record book of prints in which I keep information on the details of printing (color mixes, how many blocks, what color and sized paper, etc.) but also a running tally of how many prints have been pulled for each image. You can see it open at the top left, with color samples of the ink I've used so I can match colors for the next batch. Unless it's a small run of letterpress images (like the letterpress "posters" below), I don't usually print a whole edition at one time, since I do all my printing by hand. My drying rack gets filled up, and I get tired.

I've printed a third to a half of each edition of the England prints above (editions of 30 each). It's been kind of nice to sign so many prints "2014" and realize how much work I've actually gotten done this year. And there are definitely more prints to come. I've also been scanning in all the watercolors from England and haven't even started on the Paris ones yet, so that's nicely affirming. In spite of all the travel (and also because of it), I have a good array of new work for the fall and holiday shows.

I'm sorting and counting and trying to figure out how many prints I need to do some more of before the Pink Palace Crafts fair in October and my show of England images in November. Next I'll have to start packaging them all....

I've still got a number of prints in progress right now. I've been trying to get a lot of them drawn out and maybe carved before I leave on my next trip, so I haven't been moving just one or two from start to completion before I begin the next, which is my more normal way of working.

This print is the road down from the moor and back into the village of Levisham. I walked it at least once a day while I was there, and the final day I realized I really needed to do a watercolor of it before I left.

I'm still trying to streamline the printing process, so you can see that with the clouds being fairly removed from the ground, I can ink the grey on the same block as the green without the two getting mixed. Then I deliberately mix the yellow into the green for a little more depth and interest. Below on the left is the block with the ink rolled on it, and on the right is the print on paper.

Once the color part of the print dries, I can print the "key" block on top. That's the block with the main image and pattern, usually done in a darker color. I tried this print on several different shades of paper, so below are those color tests. Warm grey, natural, and a fawn (light tan) on the right.

Here is the color proof. I've done a bit more carving to keep the yellow from creeping into the sky and to get some more of the Queen Anne's lace staying white, but I haven't gotten a chance to print a final version yet. And I won't for a while. I'm lucky enough to be house sitting in Paris again this year (I'm so grateful they're having me back), so I'm off tomorrow. I'll be posting photos of sketches and watercolors from there. I'm glad I got most of the England prints I wanted to done, and hopefully I can pick up the threads of the few I still want to do when I get home. It's been a good month to be home working like crazy, but I'm excited about the next trip now.

Here's the first black and white proof of the key (or main image) block.

Because of the division between blue and green, I can print both on the same block, reducing labor and keeping registration problems to a minimum. Lining up each block for subsequent printings is tricky, so using fewer blocks means fewer mistakes in the printing process later.

I'm using three colors and three rollers, blending the sky out of two colors and having just one for the grass.

I tested the block on a couple of different colors of paper.

Almost finished. The green is a little too virulent, so I'll fix that in final mixing and printing. I think I'm going with the brown paper to have the cathedral be a warm, not too harsh color. I may try it on a little bit lighter fawn color too, just to see.

I've been pretty obsessive about my prints lately. I've got lots of them floating in my head, and I'm trying to take advantage of the momentum and get as many as possible out and carved and onto paper. So there are currently three that are in various stages of carving and final printing, but here are the first two in the series.

The actual printing is my least favorite part, trying to get a goodly number done in a quality control kind of way, and I didn't want to dig myself too deep a hole by having a whole mound of them still needing printing. So I settled in one afternoon, cut paper, and printed final copies of the first two in the series.

Both of these first prints are just single blocks but with multiples colors of ink rolled on at the same time. It's a looser form of printing than I've done before (I played a bit with it in my Psalm series, but this series is the full flowering). I like several different versions of these prints, color-wise, so I decided to print on a variety of tints of Stonehenge papers. The top one I printed on natural (shown), light blue, and light grey.

The second one I printed on all three of those plus a slightly darker grey. I also varied the amount of value change in the sky. Some have a more vivid change to light blue (above), and some are a subtler gradation (below). I'm not sure if my printmaking professors would approve of that. Editions are supposed to be a sheaf of identical prints. But I come out of a painting background, where it's all about the image you get, so I decided to go a little looser than the tradition in this series. I'm just having too much fun playing, and I think different colors will appeal to different folks.

In spite of three more in progress (one is thankfully in final printing), I drew out a seventh print in the series today and will transfer it to a block and start carving tomorrow. I've got another trip at the end of the month, where I'll be doing very different work, so I want to get these done before my focus shifts. Or at least get them all well on their way, so I can pick up the threads when I get home.

I've been in a bit of a frenzy since getting home from England. I have a number of prints dancing in my head, based on the watercolors I did on site while I was traveling, and I'm trying to get them out and carved before they dim and vanish. I occasionally have these strong bursts of creativity on a certain project, and I try to ride them as long and well as I can. They usually end up in work I'm pleased with.

Here's the proof of the first one. I haven't tried it in color yet -- I got distracted carving the next two instead. But I just bought a whole sheaf of paper today to start printing on.

Here are color tests for the second block, a row of trees I kept painting along the top of Levisham moor. I'm trying it on different colored papers (natural, grey, and blue), and I may print on a variety of colors, as per my friend Peter Ceren's suggestion.

Drawing out the third block, this one from my day in Derbyshire.

Tower Grove Park, one of my most favorite parks (and places) had an anniversary picnic on Sunday, and the board of directors put on an art show to go with the food trucks and concerts. What a beautiful idea. I really wanted to go, since I love making art in that park, and it was fun to get to show it right there. Thanks to the park board for letting this Memphis girl crash the St. Louis party.

My friend and fellow artist Bonnie Hopkins was kind enough to ride up with me for the night, help tote stuff, and just keep me company. I was so glad to have her along. And I was also really grateful for seven of my dance friends who made the effort to come out on a Sunday night and support me.

In between visits, I did a small sketch of one of the original composers' busts that circled the 1870's band stand in the park. It's now inside the Piper Palm House, where the exhibition was.

Below are two sketches that were in the show of the Palm House. It was originally a Victorian greenhouse to supply plants for the park, complete with stained glass at the top of the arched windows. Amazing. They have a Sunday brunch inside it each week, and otherwise it can be rented for weddings to support the upkeep of the park. A perfect venue.

More of my Tower Grove watercolors are here, along with a bunch from the Missouri Botanical Gardens as well, both of which were founded in the 1870's by Henry Shaw, one of my heroes.

Karen Jackson and Dan Klarmann were two of the friends who stopped by, and Dan took this of Karen and me talking. I love how it captures the afternoon light and the way the stained glass paints the floor in the afternoons.

At the end of the show, Bonnie and I visited the food trucks and sat outside in a gorgeous evening to hear the last few songs of the jazz band. Perfect. I took a food truck self portrait.

Then we took advantage of the late light and perfect temperature to walk a circle of the park, especially since Bonnie had never been there. Here's a catalpa tree we stopped to visit with as we walked. It's one of my favorites.

The new moon was rising over the bandstand as we circled back to our car.

Finally we joined the rest of St. Louis in treating ourselves to Ted Drewes frozen custard. They talk about it every single night on the baseball radio broadcast, and I always go when I'm in St. Louis. Amazing stuff.

This is the eighth and final print for the season of Easter. It's been a long time to do a weekly print series, but I learned a lot and especially enjoyed playing with the varied color inking.

I think I've written that I've done several art series for Lent but never for Easter. Lent seemed long enough (six weeks), and eight full weeks of Easter surprised me, but I do believe it's right that a celebration of the Resurrection should outlast the journey to the cross. Last year I read some excerpts of N.T. Wright about the way the church as a whole observes Easter. He is an Anglican bishop, but the observations are applicable to most denominations, I think.

Since his words affected my thinking so deeply, I thought I'd finish the Easter season by quoting a couple of passages here. Thank you for taking this Easter journey with me.

"It's a great step forward that many churches now hold Easter vigils, as the Orthodox church has always done, but in many cases they are still too tame by half. Easter is about the wild delight of God's creative power -- not very Anglican, perhaps, but at least we ought to should Alleluias instead of murmuring them."

"But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday...and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration."

"Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don't throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don't do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn't take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom? It's long overdue that we took a hard look at how we keep Easter in church, at home, in our personal lives, right through the system." (All quotes from Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright)

This series of prints has been my attempt to live Easter this spring. For those of you who do not celebrate Easter, thank you for your patience, and I'll be moving on to travel painting quite soon. My family is taking a trip to England in June, and I'm looking forward to painting a country I love.

Five down, three to go. Here's this week's psalm. I think I may do an edition of the block alone, without the text, as well as a small edition of the psalm.

Below are the block halfway carved and the very first proof. I pull a couple of proofs, hone a few things I don't like, and print in color only when I've got it the way I want it.

Once the image is printed, I move on to the text. I took a little wider area picture this week. You can see the metal chase (frame) that I set the type in. I build around it to the edges, like working a jigsaw or piecing a quilt. The final stage is the lock down. The metal strips at the right and bottom with round holes in them are "quoins." There's a "key", a metal tool, that fits into that hole and turns, and as it turns, the quoins expand a bit to make everything snug so that I can pick up the chase and put it in the press without the type falling everywhere. This is after I've printed. I've cleaned up the type, but you can see the roller with the dark red ink on it.

I'm finding it quite a challenge to have one of these finished every week, so this week I took a moderately easy route and went with a very simple to carve design. Now I'm trying to work ahead a bit before I'm out of town a good bit of next week. Thank heavens for a marvelous house mate.

I'm taking a break from the instruments this week. I really love in the Psalms how all of creation takes part in praising or lamenting. We humans get to thinking that everything is about us and forget that we didn't even get our own day in Creation --- we shared it with all of the beasts of the earth.