Bedroom painted, check... bathroom painted, check...

I am slowing checking things off the Great-August-Spruce-Up to do list.  Last week I finally settled on a color for my powder room, painted two thick, juicy coats of paint on the walls and am quite pleased with the outcome.  Painting the laundry room was not on my list, but happily, one of the rejected colors from the powder room project looks quite nice in there, so that room received some fresh paint as well.  I will now take a short break from this flurry of domestic updating to pay a visit to dear family in the bay area.  When I return, it's on to my grout-and-caulk project.  Carry on!

Below are a few experiments from the workshop I am taking this summer.  Each week my classmates and I play with various ideas and materials, be it type, line, or color.  I'm not sure, but I think eventually we will bind these 'experiments' into a book.

 

Reversible Flower 1

 Reversible Flower 2

 Typeface Grl

Paint chip Grl

Home Improvements?

I thought I would spend the month of August doing a little sprucing-up around the house.   Last week I slapped a fresh coat of paint in my son's bedroom, felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and eagerly turned to the next project on my list, updating the paint in my little powder room.  After three trips to the paint store and the application of two very different colors of paint, I am still unhappy with the results.  Tomorrow I will try color number three.  Looking on the bright side, there are still three weeks left in August, (plenty of time to settle on a color, no?) and I have a pile of paint chips, in a rainbow of colors, I can use in my sketchbook!

Activites list...

Or, how I'm spending the summer of 2011
1.   Day job
2.   Cat sitting
3.   Watching the weather for cycling opportunities
4.   Remaining painfully pale
5.   Grumbling about the weather
6.   Taking a 'creativity' class which is reminding me just how rigid and uptight i can be
7.   Art stuff: finishing most recent print, (see below), tossing my hat into several upcoming juried exhibits
8.   Grumbling about the weather
9.   Trying to decide on a color to paint my bathroom
10. Wondering what will happen on August 2
11. Enjoying a weekly delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables from the other (and more sunny) side of the state
12. Grumbling about the weather

 Conjoined II

(based on the writings of Joseph Joubert )

Woodblock Relief Print
17.5" x 18"

2 blocks, 8 colors, 11 passes

No sketches to share at this time. For shame!!!

"This concerns me..."

That quote above...it's from Project Runway's Tim Gunn.  I've been imagining a little Tim sitting on my shoulder for the past few days. Last week I ran into a major technical problem with my current print...dents in my beautiful piece of shina plywood created by a flaw in my press-board!  Unfortunately, I didn't discover the problem until the third run of color.  By then, quite a bit of damage had been done.  For several reasons, starting over isn't an option, so the little imaginary Tim sitting on my shoulder has been whispering another of his famous lines in my ear: "make it work!"   After a bit of kvetching and ruminating I adjusted my expectations along with a bit of the composition.  While it isn't perfect, I am beyond wanting to toss block and prints out the window.  The picture below isn't the finest quality but you can see the problem spot right there in the upper right quarter.  Hopefully the remaining tricks up my sleeve will be distracting enough to offset the current imperfection, and will earn me a delightful, "carry on!" from my little imaginary Tim.

 6 colors and 8 runs through the press...so far

And here is this week's sketch...

Limited power

Tidbit from the Sunday paper

Perusing the Sunday paper, I came across a review of a new book: The Story of Charlotte's Web: E.B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic. (you can read said article here).  Apparently, Mr. White was a shy, solitary boy who felt a great kinship to animals.  I love animals too, but can say without hesitation that spiders are the creatures for which I hold the least affection.  This presents a conundrum of sorts in that Charlotte's Web is the book I've read the most times in my life.  And my favorite character in the book was not Wilbur, or Fern, or Templeton, but Charlotte. As a child I loved her intelligence, her kindness, her patience.  I cried when she died and was touched when her little babies floated away on what I imagined were parachutes and I still think of her when I come across a web full of teeny-tiny baby spiders.  But, in all honestly, if I came across Charlotte in my home, it wouldn't matter what message she may have woven into her elegant web.  Just the sight of her eight legs  would make my skin crawl and send me running in for my spider-catcher. What is my spider-catcher you ask?  It's an ingenious contraption I invented myself, comprised of a Glad Ware bowl and an oversize postcard.  I am able to remain an arm's length away from any spider that dares to enter my living space, drop the bowl on top of him or her, and then slide the postcard under the bowl effectively trapping the arachnid .  I then toss the entire unit into the great outdoors, which is where all spiders belong.  When I am sure the critter has scuttled away I retrieve my spider catcher and breathe a big sigh of relief.

ANYWAY, the article got me thinking...it's fascinating and interesting to me how we humans are able to simultaneously feel such contradictory emotions. 

It's been a slow week in my studio and I've spent very little time with my sketchbook.  The weather has been relatively decent and after such a miserable spring I simply cannot pass up any opportunity to be outside, even if I do have to share space with spiders.  Here's a meager sketch and my current print, pass number two. I plan to forgo Independence Day celebrations and spend the day hunkered down in my studio, (although, if this year is anything like last year, my neighbors will put on a display of illegal fireworks that will rival any organized spectacle, which includes an element of danger in that I have a cedar roof.)

 "When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees."  

(I can't believe I dated this sketch September 30, 2011.)

...a wise saying by Joseph Joubert, whose wisdom has also inspired the print I am currently working on.  The image is slowly becoming clearer, no?

I caught a bug.

Last week, while perusing the internet looking at art, my home computer contracted a nasty, nasty virus.  Thank goodness I have a lovely neighbor who is also well versed in geek matters.  She worked with me for several evenings to decontaminate my poor PC, which is not quite, but mostly, back to normal.  Seriously, I am so grateful to my friend and neighbor for helping me through this ordeal!  If it weren't for her, my computer would have been tossed from a window.  But, after this most frustrating of calamities,  I find myself hesitant to venture out on to the web in search of information and inspiration. I fear I must return to the old fashioned methods I once employed to seek enlightenment and revelation...visiting the library, perusing the shelves of book stores, reading books, touring art museums...hey, that sounds like fun.
I began a new print over the weekend.  Would you like to take a guess as to what it will turn out to be? 

I love starting a new piece!  I've said this before, and it's still true:  to me, starting a new piece feels a lot like falling in love.  And here is sketch number 32 for 2011.  What, no sticky notes?  They're there, but they're white. 

This year, last year and the year before that.

The dust is beginning to settle around me.  For the past several days I've been consumed in a frenzy of reorganizing.  My house, my office, my studio, nothing has gone untouched.  Earlier today it occurred to me that last year, right about this time, I was also in a domestic groove.  At first I thought it might be a pattern of behavior, so I looked through the archives of this blog.  In doing so I discovered that two years ago at this time, I was in Florence, Italy.   Then I got depressed.   Assembling metal shelves and loading them up with dusty boxes full of stuff gleaned from my children's rooms is just not the same as roaming down medieval streets, considering the works of Giotto, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Bernini, etc., or consuming the most excellent pizza EVER.  So maybe the household hysteria in which I've engaged, this June and last, has been a convenient, if not productive way to avoid a maudlin stroll down memory lane. It's nice to have my yard in order and dozens of boxes aligned neatly on my newly assembled shelves, but I'd really rather be in Italy.

 

Some of my fellow travelers and me, enjoying the chapels of  the Basilica of Santa Croce
Florence, Italy, 2009
*sigh*

In between shuttling boxes and moving furniture I was able to finish my print for the SPA Print Exchange.  I am satisfied with the result.

 

Conjoined I
Wood block print
11" x 15"
2 blocks, 6 colors, 6 passes

Unfortunately, I didn't get much time with my sketchbook this week. So in honor of all dad's everywhere, I'm re-posting this sketch of my dad; an interpretation of his graduation photo.

 

Richard H. Best ~ Flint Central High School, Class of 1943
Best Dad EVER