Here is week two of the Easter Psalm series. I just looked at the liturgical calendar and realized I have six more of these to do. Possibly an ill advised series when I'm traveling so much, but I really like celebrating Easter for more than a day, especially in a year and a spring that are so personally joyful to me.

In previous years, I've done a series of prints to mark the season of Lent, but last year I read a quote from N.T. Wright talking about how we observe Lent for 40 days but only celebrate Easter for one. This year I decided to do a series for the season of Easter instead.

I carved the trumpet for the first print on my recent road trip, and, knowing I had a pretty quick turnaround after coming home, I also took my travel printing kit to be able to proof it and really have it ready to print when I got back. I found a train style make up case at the second hand mecca of Unclaimed Baggage in Alabama a few years ago, and it's the perfect size for my basic printing equipment.

When I got home I was ready to print the final image on the good paper in colored ink.

Then I set the wood type, using a metal frame called a chase. This means I can pick it up and move it around instead of having be stuck in my proof press, making me unable to print anything else until I disassemble the type. For smaller projects I can use a chase. For the bigger ones, I put larger type right in the bed of the press. This project is about 10x11", using my smallest wood type, so a chase is just right.

Finally I printed the type on top of the trumpet image.

And here's a sneak peek at week two of Easter. I couldn't resist a banjo, of course.

The segment about me that was filmed by the PBS show Tennessee Crossroads is out and up on You Tube. You can watch the six minute segment at:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSrzY5QPrs&feature=youtu.be

I'm always a little stunned at how Southern I sound outside my own head, and occasionally I feel like there's a reason I'm a visual artist instead of a verbal one, but they did a really nice job of putting together an overview of my life, work, and creative philosophy.

And they showed off Mr. Darcy....

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.

I'm doing one print a month for the First Presbyterian Church in Holley, NY. They are my longest running church patrons, and I love working with their minister Tom Gardner. For much of this year, I will create an "I am" statement for each month. This fall we'll continue the harvest series I began for them last year.

I'm playing with the positive/negative lettering for this series, which requires a fair amount of concentration, but thankfully I didn't make such a mistake on this one that I had to start over, like I did with the first one. Perhaps I'm getting into a groove with it.

I did forget that my proof press was full of type from another project, so I had to do the first proof the old fashioned way, by rubbing on the back of the paper with a flat wooden spoon. I did about three years' worth of prints like that, and it's a good reminder how fortunate I am to have a press now.

I've been slow working lately and am likely to continue to be so for a bit. I've been out of town a little, had a cold, and been stymied in my carving by a very dull gouge, the one I most rely on. I'm way overdue for my yearly tune up with all my gouges done by my toolmaking friend in North Carolina, and my most used one just got away from my ability to sharpen it. I'm still trying to learn to be better at that.

So I took a break from carving the moon (above) for my next letterpress poster. I finally got back to it today and got to proof it (on the right). I'll thin out those lines a bit more, and then it will be ready to be a background for some more wood type text.

I did some book-keeping, emails, packaging, and other uninspiring work during my break. I also went ahead and started a different letterpress poster (below). I had the block already carved, but I want to try it with a different color scheme and with different text. I've got the backgrounds printed now and just need to set the type, hopefully when I get back in town next week.

First, though, I'm going dancing this weekend with my sisters and assorted old and marvelous friends!

I got my beloved Chandler and Price press just on four years ago, and the very first block I carved was a valentine. Really it was a valentine for the press itself. The next year I created a letterpress valentine from old metal type and and a vintage bee ornament. Last year I was in a bit of turmoil and more or less skipped that holiday, but this year I'm celebrating printmaking and life in general, so here is the new one.

I'm still playing around with inking two different colors. This time I used warm red and a warm purple. It worked for a little while, but the colors were similar enough that pretty soon they flattened out into one solid for most of the run. Mixing yellow and blue to make green is a more lasting contrasting effect. These two colors were just a little too close, I think. I got some nice mixed ones like the one on top, but mostly they looked like this:

Here are the previous years' valentines.

And here I am with my valentine press. And my beloved dog Merlin. Thanks to Kelly Cox for the photo, from back in 2011.

First Presbyterian Church in Holley, NY, is commissioning me to do another series of liturgical prints. I'm going to do a series of "I am" statements from John for their spring bulletins.

I started drawing the first one free hand, but using one of my type books as a guide for the lettering.

Then I got it transferred onto the block, outlined the letters with an exacto knife (to try to keep the edges sharp and keep me from cutting on through a line), and started carving. Things were going along great on the left, but then I started listening too hard to the Sunday morning puzzle on NPR and got distracted. The A in BREAD was supposed to be dark, to show up in the white of the bread, and I cut right into the letter. These positive/negative ones are especially tricky brainteasers for me. And that was in spite of the shading I did to try to keep myself straight.

Fortunately I wasn't too far along, so I started over, kept it straight, and managed to finish the print. Below is the first proof. I cleaned up the letters and edges a bit before pulling the final version at the top of the post.

I'm continuing both my January freedom to play with different kinds of projects and also my run of feminist letterpress posters with this offering. It's another bluegrass one, to go with my Little Maggie poster. The quote is a quite old verse that has floated around into a lot of songs, but I know it from "Sitting on Top of the World", a standard in both blues and bluegrass.

Above is the finished product. I did an edition of 20, about as many as I want to hand ink at one sitting, especially since I'm still playing around with grading the ink through several colors.

I've been having fun with my wood type lately, and I wanted to try combining it with a carved image. My first step was to carve the block and print it.

The next day I typeset the words I wanted.

Then I printed them and realized I had the words on the left by mistake instead of on the right. I was looking at a proof of the print as I laid things out. Next time I'll use the actual block instead, since it's also in the mirror image state. But I was a little sleep deprived that day, and this is all still a learning process for me.

I had done a couple of proofs to play with instead of using the good paper right off, so after printing the one below and realizing it was wrong, I moved things around and printed the actual prints.

If I'm not careful I'll end up with a wood type letterpress show somewhere. I'm really having fun with these.

I recently re-watched "Much Ado About Nothing" with Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh (directed by him as well). It's one of my all time favorite movies, and my favorite part may be the very beginning with a dark screen where Emma just speaks the words of this song. Breathtakingly beautiful. Being in a flux period of dating at the moment, the song also seemed good to have in my arsenal at the moment. I find it helps to have a few songs that see me through those occasional "Boys are stupid" moments in life, even though I generally enjoy the company of men just fine.

I'm also playing with inking on these posters. I've been mixing gently gradated colors and using several different rollers to gradually fade the colors from top to bottom. You can see the ink on the letters in the above right picture of the type set into the bed of the proof press. You can also see the jigsaw puzzle nature of typesetting. It's fun to fill in the holes and make everything snug.

My other experiment was interweaving the two different phrases in the poster on the left, seeing whether different sizes and colors would leave the phrases legible and discreet. I'd be happy to hear how it strikes those of you who aren't as familiar with the poem. It's hard for me to come at it with fresh eyes since I know what I was trying to accomplish.

I did an edition of 10 for the "Men were deceivers ever" and 20 for the "Hey Nonny Nonny" (I thought there might be a little more call for the happier one). The posters are $30 each or $50 for the pair, since I really made them to go together.