An Appreciative Review of Green Heron Lino

Green Heron with Twelve-spotted Skimmer. Reduction Linocut by Ken Januski

In my many years as an artist I've heard a lot of complaints from artists about lack of appreciation. To a large extent I have little sympathy. My very first experience with public audiences, as opposed to friends and relatives, took place at an art festival in San Francisco about 40 years ago. As I watched people walk by the 2-3 works I'd gotten in the show I noticed that most people didn't even look. Those that did usually spent less than 10 seconds looking.

When I got into my first juried show as a student at University of California at Berkeley the janitor yelled out in his memorable Portuguese accent that I'd better get my stuff out of the gallery if I didn't want it to "smell like horse****". Some disgruntled, or perhaps just avant-garde graduate students, decided to dump a load of horse manure in the gallery. They called it an Art Attack as I recall.

When I got into my first serious juried show at the University of Rochester about 30 years ago I went to the opening with a friend of mine who'd also gotten in the show. I think he might have ended up winning a prize. Me? Both of my 4x6 foot abstract paintings were hung upside down! When I complained about this I was told that they couldn't fix it until after the opening, when of course the audience would decrease drastically.

Between those experiences, a lot of knowledge of art history and the lives of artists, and perhaps a general skepticism I've come not to expect much in the way of appreciation. Even the best artists are often appreciated for the wrong reasons. So much as I'd like to sell more of my artwork and see more appreciation of it I fully believe that most artists are quite lucky to find even a few people who really appreciate their work.

At some point of course truly appreciative buyers help I think to build an impetus toward sales to a broader audience that may buy less for appreciation than for cachet. Of course if it pays the bills I think most artists can live with that, especially if they know that they have some true fans.

All of which leads to the thought that I almost never read anything in print that I think appreciates my  work, especially something that is more than just a quick comment from generous peers. As I've said I don't really expect this, or wake up each day hoping to find it. I think this is in the nature of art, regardless of whether it is painting, writing, music, or whatever.

But when it happens I'm surely not going to ignore it. So this is all an extremely long lead-in to a note of thanks to Martha Knox for a wonderful review and appreciation of my reduction lino, Green Heron with Twelve-spotted Skimmer, shown at top. You can read the post on her blog Words on Woodcuts. Thank you  Martha!

The link above takes you directly to the post about my work. But I'd recommend looking at other posts as well as exploring all of her collected links. As an only occasional printmaker I often work in the dark. It's always to see the work of other printmakers. Martha has also written appreciations of other print works in separate posts. Eventually I hope to find the time to read more of them.

Art criticism is the oddest thing. I was once asked if I had any  interest in writing it. I said no, definitely  not. The reason is that I'm a fairly critical person and it would make no sense, and I would take no enjoyment, in writing primarily negative articles. Writing an appreciation of an artist I admire is something else entirely though. It's fun to do, though not necessarily easy. I've only written a few such appeciations but  when I do I  enjoy it. I  think what's most enjoyable is that I get a chance to try to share my excitement with the work with others. Sounds corny  perhaps but it is true. And that is what Martha seems to do  in the posts I've read so  far about the work of others. I would heartily recommend taking a look at her blog, especially these appreciations.

Green Heron Lino - Color Two

Today I printed the second color of the Green Heron with Twelve-spotted Skimmer linocut. And I'm no longer flying quite as blind. Once a darker color gets printed it's easier to see the entire print, unlike when there was just the one yellow color. Still the yellow was necessary and it seemed best to print it as the first color.

My plans include a blue for the heron and part of the background, a maroon/purple for the heron and possiblly the background, and a black. After that who knows? One thing I do know is that I wish my white ink would arrive soon so that I can add a tint or shade. Since it is a manufacturing problem however my guess is that the print will be completed without the use of white.

I read an interview with a  wildlife artitst today  who mentioned that art was at least as important as realistic acccuracy in his work. That is exactly my thinking and I think that this print shows that philosophy. Unfortunately so much wildlife art seems enslaved to photographic realism and nothing more.For whatever reason this seems particularly true in American wildlife art.

Flying Blind, With Obstacles

In retrospect I almost always like my reduction linocuts, the ones where I print the block in one color, cut away more lino and print in another color, and so on to the point where there's very little lino left by the time I'm done.

I say in retrospect because sometimes the actual time spent developing the print can have more than its share of problems. I don't do reduction linocuts to prove any technical  mastery. More likely they show the opposite. Instead I do them because I like the end result, in particular the mismatched overlaps of color that give the print a jangly quality, reminiscent in some ways to the jazzy work of Stuart Davis, one of my abstract heros, or to Mondrian in Broadway Boogie-Woogie. I'm not trying to put myself in their company, always a danger when mentioning well known artists, but to help explain my  motiivation.

I think  this jangly, jazzy feel is as appealing to some people as it is bothersome to others. I've sometimes theorized that this is due to a more urban versus more rural background but who really knows? I  grew up a half block from farmland, lived in the large cities of Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia, where I still live, but more and more find my interest rural rather than urban.

In spite of that my taste is still more for the jazzy. Perhaps it will pass!

In any  case I've decided that I want to do more reduction linocuts. When I do them I often tend to start off with a lighter color, then proceed to darker ones. But this is a bit like flying blind. It's really hard to even see the print when it's yellow on white. That's what you  see at top. And the photo shows a stronger contrast than you  can see in real life. That's where the 'flying blind' in title of post somes from.

But as with watercolor it's the whites  that will help to make the print sing.  The only time I have to create them is when I make the first cut and print the first color. After that any future cuts will show the last color printed, not the white of the paper. After the first color is printed all future printing happens on top of the first prints. So when I carve out more lino and print in a new color what show through is not the white of the paper but the colors already printed.

There are aome lino printers I suspect who think  out in advance which color will go where and when, more or less. But I can't work that way. For me instead I need to print something and then respond to it, what I called process in the last post. This is part of the appeal of the lino process, especially reduction lino. The one big problem is that you can bet I'll find I want some more white areas as the print develops. And it will be too late by then to retrieve them. My only chance is on this first color.

Because of that I also printed a slightly earlier proof of this in black ink. Black will most likely be the last color I use in the actual print. But I've used in here, printed on copier paper, just to allow me to see the contrast between ink and paper a bit better.

I think this explains pretty well the phrase flying blind. But what about with obstacles, the last part of the title? Well there are a number of  them. For one I can't order white ink in the brand I use because there's been a production problem. It should have shipped a week ago but it's still not ready. I thought I had some old white left and could get by with that for proofing. But what I had was just a tiny bit that included more specks of dry paint than of wet paint. That  meant that when I used it  I  just got dry flakes of paint all over my print, my inking slab and other tools. The same thing happened with my old transparent base which I hoped to use to make the initial yellow transparent. Eventually  I tossed those proofs and restarted with a brand new jar of yellow, free of dreid paint. But it's the lack of white which I suspect will  be the real problem. I'm sure that as thsi print develops I'll want to use a tint or a gray version of a color. But I won't have the requisitie white to do so. So that will be an obstacle, but also  might possibly result in a pleasant surprise.

I'm rarely a technical person when it comes to art. But with printing it can't be avoided completely. So please excuse this brief foray into technical problems. If the print is successful these problems will just add to the success.

I assume it's obvious what t he subject is but in case it's not: this is based  on a watercolor I did this summer of a Green Heron holding a Twelve-spotted Skimmer in his bill, ready to  eat it.

Those Dragonflies

In my last post I mentioned taking some photos of dragonlfies. Recently I've been looking through my photos and just couldn't resist trying some sketches.I last did insect sketches 10-15 years ago. What a difference time makes! In those I had to draw the insects under a dissecting microscope. That was the only  way to see enough detail. I also had to kill them in a killing jar in order to study them.

Today I can take digital photos while they're still alive and active. The magnification is equal to that of the dissecting scope I used to use. Of  coures I can't move them around to see hidden parts and understand the structure better. Without my memory of structure from those old drawings these photos might be not quite as useful.

In any case I've greatly  enjoyed doing these. They are all on Moleskine A4 Sketchbook paper and all done with  a Caran d'Ache ballpoint pen. One thing I immediately remembered as I did them was why  I love drawing insects: they are a marvel of structure and shape and they allow an artist to bring to  bear many skills.

Drawing the nude is mainly an exercise in curvilinear shapes. Drawing from nature often involves amorphous, undifferentiated shapes, at least when it comes to most foliage and many landscapes. Hard edges are there but not all that often and if so broken up by  softness, for instance in tree trunks and the foliage that hides them. But with insects you  can have the sweeping elegant curve of a wing  coupled with  the hard edges of the limbs or thorax.

As I've drawn these I found that I couldn't resist trying to capture the shapes of the thorax and head, even when they were hidden by wing and bad photography. One of the appeals of naturalistic drawing, at least for me, is rendering the complexity of three dimensions into two dimensions. I love doing this and sometimes wonder if it's not almost a primitive desire, a evolutionary remnant of early days in the life of man. There is something so satisfying about getting down the structure of something. In any case, before I waft way in the ether, this is one of the things I enjoy about drawing insects.

And of course dragonflies are beautiful as well as having a fascinating life history if you care to study it. Many people will of course love dragonflies for their color, pattern, movement. I do too. But for now it's time to get their structure down. Perhaps in the future I'll be able to sketch them live and add color, trying to  get many of their striking qualities captured all at once.

The sketch at top includes, at least as best I can tell, a Blue Dasher and Eastern Pondhawk. The sketch at bottom has the ubiquitous, at least at Morris Arboretum, Twelve-spotted Skimmer and an unidentified damselfly.

Updated Green Heron Watercolor

As I've looked at my last watercolor of the Green Heron and Twelve-spotted Skimmer a number of things have been bothering me. They are primarily concerned with formal matters; composition, distribution of lights and darks, etc. But then today I noticed that the eye was incorrectly placed. That seemed too much to allow to stay. So I incorporated that fix along with some more formal changes. Many of them involved the use of  white gouache, or opaque watercolor.

I really  refrain from its use. It takes away from the sense of brightness and light that to me is watercolor's most desirable characteristic. But this painting had already lost most sense of transparent brightness.So I didn't worry about using the gouache to get what I hoped would be a better overall painting.

In the end it's more reminiscent of some of the heavy handed oil paintings of some early  20th century painting, fumbling its way toward abstraction. It certainly is no longer a bright transparent watercolor. I hope  that one day I'll be more successful in that manner. For now it seemed more important to get an overall composition that worked.

Green Heron with Twelve-spotted Skimmer

My last few trips to Morris Arboretum have turned up Green Herons among other migrating birds. I've done numerous field sketches and one of them showed the heron with a dragonfly in his mouth. Twelve-spotted Skimmers have been the most plentiful dragonflies recently so I assumed that's what he'd gotten. They're also so boldly patterned that there's the slim possibility that they could be identified at the small size they'd need to take in a painting of the heron itself. So here's one of my few recent attempts at watercolor.

The complex color and wing patterns of Green Herons make them difficult to paint. I have no interest in putting each little mark of the complex pattern. But doing a impressionistic version of them has never worked well for me either. This is one more attempt at a shorthand verson. Though I have numerous photos this is based, except for foliage, entirely on the sketch itself. I used the photos for some vague idea of foliage and then improvised from there. This also seems to be an eternal process -- getting some sense of foliage, and feathers, without detailing every single one. I have to admire anyone who can do so

I should also mention, in case you haven't noticed, that I'm a real theorizer when it comes to art. I try to think through what I'm doing. But that only  goes so far. At times you just need to start painting, hope for the best, and learn from what happens. That's what I did here though only time will tell if I've learned anything. Part way through this painting I was about to abandon this as an abysmal failure, a stiff bird with a non-existent background. But it paid to keep working and try to get a background that was believable and also worked with the heron. This reminds me of watching a baseball game last night where the commentators said that the pitcher,  who'd been having a rough time recently,  should have gained some confidence from last night's successful outing. The same is true with painting. If you have a more or less successful outing you  gain in confidence. But this can never happen if you don't actually go out and take a chance on a painting, knowing when you  do that it might end up an abysmal failure. I confess that though I always know this is a possibility I was shocked at how bad this looked at one point along the way!

Late Summer Bird Sketches

It always seems that the heat and humidity of July limit the time I spend outside and consequently the time I spend field sketching. But a few cooler days over the last week or so have prompted me to get out a bit more often. Above at top left is a young Great Crested Flycatcher seen at Morris Arboretum about a week ago.
Below it is a Pectoral Sandpiper, seen last Sunday at Tinicum, along with many, many Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers. It was shocking to see so many, some of them right at our feet below the boardwalk that crosses the main impoundment. As I sketched this I deliberately left the large white area on breast. And yet when I looked at the photos I took and guide books it doesn't really show up. My guess is that it was just lighter, which is likely, and I overcompensated. I did want to accentuate the dark breast markings as well as the flight feathers toward the back. When I see such a flock of birds I'm always disappointed that I don't have a full day to just sit and sketch them. Unfortunately Tinicum is about 30 minutes away where as Morris, a very small wetland, is only five to ten minutes away. So I often end up at Morris where there's never such a plethora of shorebirds.
And Morris rarely disappoints. After all it is an arboretum. So there are always interesting trees and shrubs. The wetlands area is primarily native vegetation. Usually it's quite easy to get close looks at Great Blue and Green Herons, Belted Kingishers, Wood Ducks and numerous other local birds. We haven't seen many Eastern Phoebes since late spring. On the right page above is the first one we've seen this summer, at Morris yesterday. Green Herons have been quite visible the last week or so and the one above is also from Morris.

There was also a very vocal young Red-tailed Hawk and I was able to do a couple of sketches of him. Unfortunately he changed his position as I was about half-way through the larger drawing. That explains the darker areas on head. I tried to guess what it looked like and then tried to rectify my mistakes with more ballpoint pen marks. It's a basic maxim of field sketching that you should only put down what you see. But sometimes it's hard to follow that maxim; there's always a desire to make the sketch look more finished. Other birds keeping their poses for only a short time were a Cedar Waxwing, seen at top left and a female Belted Kingfisher below. One of the odder sights was the kingfisher attacking the hawk numerous times.

There is nothing particularly good about these sketches, though that of course depends upon your perspective. Compared to what I started with three years ago they're magnificent. Compared to some of the truly amazing artists of the Wildlife Art thread at birdforum they're still the work of a beginner. Irregardless I do enjoy them now and have for the last couple of years. I know that at least partially they've captured what I've seen. They always seem nutritious as I think most honest field sketches do.
I'm not so sure about the finished version of the reduction linocut of Twelve-spotted Skimmer and Solidary Sandpiper. I won't go into all the technical problems but I think it's evident that it's just not a very clean print. There's a bit of muddiness in execution. I'm surprised that this doesn't happen more often with the complex method of reduction linocut. In some ways this is my most unsuccessful, at least in my own eyes. Still I do love the composition and think the print is not a complete failure. But I also know I had plans for something much more successful. So this one doesn't seem quite as nutritious as those field sketches. Not all progress in any field is constantly smooth though. This may be the necessary next step in reduction linos for me. Perhaps the hext one will be much easier and much more successful. As always this is much informed by my field sketching, even if it looks like I've been very sloppy or don't really know the creatures portrayed.

A Most Recalcitrant Print

In my long history as an artist there have been numerous times, maybe two or three times a year, when I have battled a work. I don't know what else to call it. From one perspective it's a battle of wills. From another perspective it's an unwillingness to admit defeat, something that is not true of all artists. Some have the sense to just destroy or abandon the troublesome work and move on. From one other perspective it's a chance to learn, to face difficulties and come out having either conquered them or at least have learned something in not conquering them. When I was a graduate student one professor/artist said, partially I think because he wasn't that fond of my painting in its current state, that one of my most admirable qualities was that I'd press on to completion with the work, one way or the other.
What he said I think is true. It's not a badge of honor though. Sometimes it's far smarter to just abandon ship and find a new more seaworthy vessel. But I'm now stuck on the current dinghy, headed I fear for capsizing on the rocks.
I ran out of an oil based black ink about two weeks ago. Perhaps partially because of that, but I think also just because of the appearance of the print I decided it needed a third color. So I printed the brown that was in the last print. It was far too dark and didn't really indicate the true color of the Solitary Sandpiper. I showed that version in last post.
But I hoped that once I received my new jar of Gamlin Portland Intense Black that I'd be fine. I could remedy the problems with the black, especially in the Twelve-spotted Skimmer. Well to make a long story short that didn't work. The results are at top. I eventually cut away all blacks except for the skimmer and the eye of the sandpiper. Everything else just looked like a fuzzy mess.
The black was supposed to be the last color. But I see that it will never work as is. So I hope to add a fourth color now, a lighter brown for the sandpiper and perhaps for highlights in other brown areas. I don't have high hopes for this but you never know. Sometimes artists tend to be too critical immediately after making something. A few days later, especially with some modifications, things may look better.

You could say that this print has been snakebitten though. I did the first version of it about four months ago, just in black. By the time I'd taken this photo I'd already used ink that was too tacky and that convinced me to recut the lino more deeply, losing much of its original crispness. Just a day or two earlier it was much crisper than it is above. All in all this print has been going downhill for four months now!! But I've always loved the composition. So that's why I decided to redo it in color. It has been a real, and very lengthy, struggle. But as I said this will happen a few times a year, just as financial advisors will tell you that your investments, if you're fortunate enough to have them, will go down at times. In the long run though, if you're not constantly buying and selling, you'll come out ahead. I think that's true here as well. But I'd prefer to come out ahead, RIGHT NOW.

Due to the smell of the solvents in oil-based inks I try to avoid them in the initial stages of a print. I've found that Dick Blick's Water-based black ink printed on copier paper is perfect for proofing as I develop the print. But towards the end I like to change to the ink, and eventually paper, that I'll print the edition on. Above is the first proof of the Hermit Thrush and Sandhill Cranes lino using the Gamblin ink. It looks very good and gives me hope for the edition. It will be printed on Rives Lightweight paper which is nowhere near as willing to accept the ink as the copier paper. Still I hope it will do well enough. That is the next challenge ahead, outside of color number four for the dragonfly and sandpiper print
Finally I got my new ink, and a new Japanese carving tool, from McClains Printmaking Supplies. Along with them came a catalog, the first I've seen from them. My eyes are still BIG from looking at the tools, papers, etc.

Scenes of Summer

I suppose the typical natural scene of summer depends on where you live. If we lived nearer the coast I'm sure that terns and shorebirds would come to mind as part of a typical summer for us. Here though I think one of the scenes that most typifies summer to me are orange skippers on purplish ironweed. To me it is an irresistible color combination, especially when combined with the green foliage of the ironweed. Yesterday we were at Morris Arboretum scouting out birds, dragonflies and damselflies and found the scene above.
I'd love to make a painting or print from this and probably will at some time. But yesterday I was so out of practice that even my field sketches of two Green Herons and an immature Great Crested Flycatcher weren't much to speak of. I wasn't about to try to sketch butterflies, dragonflies or wildflowers. So I took a number of photos. Only after I got home did I ID the butterflies as Zabulon and Least Skipper. I'm not absolutely sure on the Zabulon but the tiny size and distinct markings don't leave much doubt as to what the small skipper is. And now I have three 'Leasts' that I always love to see: Least Sandpiper, already in Pennsylvania but not seen at Morris, Least Tern, the subject of my last acrylic painting, and now the handsome Least Skipper.

There was quite a swarm of Least Skippers. Though we did see the one on ironweed most were seen on mint leaves, and on the flowering plant above. It's equally as striking a combination as that of skippers and ironweed. The color and shape of the flowers are quite striking. When we saw these skippers most were on mint-like leaves. So we just assumed they were mint. But as I looked at these flowers I was pretty sure that they weren't mint. They did remind me of an agastache that we once grew in our garden. Today I did a quick online search for agastache and now I'm not convinced that this is what it is. Still I think it must be in the mint family. Eventually I'll do a bit more investigating.
It too calls out for a painting or print. Though these photos looked good enough on t he camera they're quite disappointing here. That seems to always be the case with me and photos. And that's why I paint: to try to get the excitement of actually seeing something.

I was temped to title this post 'Good Progress', and then make fun of the title. What other progress is there? If things are progressing then they are good. If not they are regressing and bad. In truth a more accurate title might have been 'Slow Progress' for the lino above and 'Possible Regression' for the lino below.

I've said before that much of my art I consider to be a type of orchestration: of color, shape, tone, pattern, texture, composition. Unless I'm just doing a study then it is far more than just putting a likeness down on paper or canvas. Whether or not anyone sees this is secondary. It would be nice but it's generally too much to expect. So I keep changing things, trying to reach my idiosyncratic sense of what looks like a finished painting or print. I wouldn't bring this up except to explain why I've spent so much time on these two prints.
The top one of a Hermit Thrush and Sandhill Cranes at Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin is coming along well and just about ready for me to print an edition. The bottom one now has the second color printed. I was very tempted to leave this lino with just two colors, a golden/ochre and black. But I decided to add a third color, a brown for the sandpiper and dead stems. I'm not happy with the new color. I'm awaiting a shipment of black ink. When it arrives I'll see if the third black color can salvage this. I surely hope so. I will have spent 40 hours on it by the time I'm done. If not it will be a disappointment for sure, but sometimes you just need to have failures in order to learn. Time will tell.

Multiple Blocks, Online Stores

One of the methods I've never before used in my linocuts is that of multiple linoleum blocks. You print one or more colors on one block and then one or more colors on another block. As usual the biggest problem is registration, so that what you print on one block matches up with what will be printed from the other block.
I'm not sure if doing a reduction linocut as I've done on my other multi-colored linos is easier or more difficult. In them you keep carving into the same block. But each time you print a new color you have to make sure that you place the paper you've already printed earlier colors on onto the block so that it registers. This was not an easy job with my 9-color Blackburnian Warbler lino. What made it possible for me, without my head exploding, is that I've never been finicky. A slight lack of registration gives me a bit of dissonance that I think I prefer in my own art.
For some reason such dissonance seems more modern. I'm not sure if that's true or not. And it's quite a comment if it does. Still it does strike me as true. In any case in the lino at top I've tried to revive my old lino of the Twelve-spotted Skimmer and Solitary Sandpiper from late last year. This is a proof at top but I do like it. In particular I like how the striking black and white spots of the dragonfly show up strongly. I'm still deciding whether or not to add a second color to one of the blocks using reduction. If I do so it will be a brown that more accurately reflects the color of the sandpiper. But I may decide to just leave is as is. I don't want to lose the strong contrast that I have right now.

Though I've wanted to do more with this subject for quite a while I was prompted to do so now because I needed to keep my mitts off the lino above. It's nearly done. But when I'm not sure what to do next it's very tempting to just do something and see what happens. That's the odd thing about art. I don't believe you can really ever THINK something through. It's always a combination of thought and action. But too much action, especially with media like lino and watercolor, that punish you for overwork can also be very dangerous.
So to force myself to leave it alone and glance at it occasionally I've started on this new lino. Only time will tell how much more work will be done on it. Eventually I'll need to print both of these linos on good paper.
I think it was at least three years ago and probably a few more that I started an online store to sell my work. That link is listed on the upper right as 'For Sale.' But I've never been too happy with it. It's expensive, has teeny, tiny images in the various templates that it offers and has very bad analytics, so that it's hard to know who is coming to the store, where they come from, why they might put an item in their cart and then not checkout.
So about a year and a half ago when I took up printmaking again for the first time in many years I opened an online store on etsy that was mainly for prints. Since they were lower priced and etsy, at least from what I can tell, is also geared to lower prices this made sense. But as I've gotten more and more unhappy with my main online store I've added more work to etsy. I'm now at the point where I'm seriously thinking about just dropping the other store. Etsy has its own problems. Who knows how anyone can ever find anything there. There is just so much STUFF!! But it also has tools like Etsy Mini, the little grid of images of my own items that is at upper right of this blog. I like this and my guess is that it sends a number of viewers to my etsy store.
I don't think too many people who read this blog frequent my online store. But in case you do this will explain what happened if you no longer see it in a few weeks.

And What of Lino?

It's been quite awhile since I've done any linoleum block prints. This is odd because it's a way I like to work and my prints are relatively popular, at least in terms of comments I receive. I think one reason is that for me linos require more planning than the other media I use: acrylic, pastel, charcoal and even watercolor. Once you carve away part of the linoleum block it's gone for good. So it seems smarter to have at least some rough guidelines before starting.
There are a number of other reasons that I won't go into here. Suffice it to say that generally speaking I think my best linos have been ones that are based on other work I've done in other media. Transposing something I've already done seems to work well for some reason
So after hemming and hawing for months on what to do next I finally decided that the newest lino would be based on an old pastel of a Hermit Thrush and Sandhill Crane in the background. At the top is the second stage of this, printed with cheap ink on copier paper.

Since it's been so long since I've done any linos I was surprised to find the block for the Twelve-spotted Skimmer and Solitary Sandpiper in my printing and proofing area. THAT was a disappointment, the finished print I mean. I seem to lose all detail when I changed inks going from proof to edition. I then cut deeper to make up for it, before I realized that the problem might be the ink itself. I finished the edition but told myself that sometime in the future I should go back to the block with different ink and try a proof. That's what I did today with some leftover ink. The results remind me of how much I like this idea. I think that once I finish the Hermit Thrush/Sandhill Crane lino I'll return to this. I still think there's something great waiting here.
It supposed to be 100 degrees or more later today. I do all my proofing and printing in our very cool basement. Do you think that had anything to do with my decision to finally return to lino? I don't think so but it is compelling evidence!

Finished

Just the other day I remarked on how swimmingly the edition of the Downy Woodpecker and Canada Goose had gone. None of the typical problems with ink consistency.

But today things were back to normal or even worse. I just couldn't keep the fine detail in this print of a Twelve-spotted Skimmer with Solitary Sandpiper. I still like it but it's a bit broader than I'd intended. I've yet to figure out what prints need to be tossed from the edition I pulled today. I pulled 18 prints but my guess is that the signed edition will only include between 12 and 15.

I do really like this subject. So who knows? Maybe there will still be a larger painting sometime in the future.

Twelve-spotted Skimmer and Solitary Sandpiper Lino

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about using sketchbooks as the source of more developed work. I showed a new watercolor sketch based on field sketches of Twelve-spotted Skimmers and Solitary Sandpipers both seen on the same day at Morris Arboretum last summer. The sketch was not complete or finished. But I thought it had a lot of possibilities as a more developed work.

The main area I felt that I needed to work on was the foreground and to a lesser extent the background. I had objects in two different planes in space: the dragonfly and the bird. I felt that I needed something for the dragonfly to sit on that both held him and added to the design of the picture. I wasn't really satisfied with what I'd done in the watercolor.

So I started sketching the dragonfly and the dead flower that it had been sitting on. The flower had extravagant curves, in both flower and dead seed head, that were infatuating. So I wanted to get them in if I could. The trick was to get them in without having them dominate everything else.

When I had a sketch I was happy with I scanned it and made some prints of it. I then pasted in into my sketchbook and drew in the rest of the sketch, as you can see above. Eventually I then scanned it, reversed it and copied in onto a small 4x6 inch linoleum block.

I've spent most of the day cutting this lino. After getting it to where I was fairly happy with it I switched to the paper I was going to print on, Rives Heavyweight, and the ink I planned to use, Caligo Safe Wash. Unfortunately the ink is too heavy and is covering up some detail, especially in the bird and dragonfly.

So the next step is to recut some of the more subtle lines and hope that the ink has thinned out a bit. After that I may do a bit more work on the far shore. But there's not much lino left. I've cut a lot away. So I'll be cautious, I hope, with any remainging changes.

As with the watercolor sketch I like the idea of combining two things that I saw in the same day in the same location, though not in this exact view. It's part of what makes art enjoyable.

'Nothing I Say Can Improve the Way it Looks'

That was the large type quote in today's Wall Street Journal obit on ceramic artist Ken Price written by Peter Plagens. It immediately got my attention.

I don't let my feelings about contemporary art theory slip out much on this blog. I'm sure that they do occasionally. I'm much more open about them on my main web site. I also believe that art theory is pretty worthless, or at least debilitating. It's so easy to waste your time thinking about art and the art world rather than undertaking the far more rewarding and satisfying task of just making art. So I assume very few readers of this blog are interested in my thoughts on the subject.

But sometimes things just bother you and get under your skin. I looked at an online application for a local juried art show today. It will explore the 'themes and ideas that are current within the arts of Philadelphia.' Uh, oh. That most likely rules me out. I don't even know what those ideas are. What's worse I'd be willing to bet I'd think that they were utter nonsense if I did know. (So by now you can probably see why I don't write about this much here!). In any case the notion of ideas in art is always under my skin, like a nasty thorn.

So when I read the Ken Price obit, an artist I should say I vaguely recalled from my years in California, my heart leapt when I read

Part of Price's uniqueness -- particularly in today's logorrheic, theory-besotted art world -- was his straightforwardness.

'Theory-besotted art world.' I couldn't have said it better myself. It's the main reason I turned from abstract art to naturalistic art 10-15 years ago.

Plagens goes on to quote Price:

I can't prove that my art's any good or that it means what I say it means. And nothing I can say can improve the way it looks.

I think that this is at the heart of my view on art, whether it's abstract, naturalistic or anything in between. The only thing that's important to me is how it looks. Just as with music I care about what it sounds like. This would seem to be a simple, self-obvious statement. But in the bizarro world of art nothing is self-evident other than the one fad will follow another.

Well, as I said, not many people who read this blog I suspect are very interested in this type of thing. They're interested more in nature or naturalistic art I think. But even for them I think the importance of what something looks like is worth mentioning.

I said yesterday that I don't get much satisfaction out of working from photos, even if the work turns out fairly realistic. I'm happy with my recent ballpoint pen drawings of wood warblers. But they seem to me more like exercises than anything else. And in fact they were I did them mainly to learn. I also tried to make drawings that were pleasing to look at and that somehow captured the bird. But there was still a bit of 'exercise' in them.

By contrast I'm now trying to create a print or painting of the Twelve-Spotted Skimmer and Solitary Sandpiper that I saw last summer at Morris Arboretum. Yesterday's ink and watercolor wash drawing was one attempt. Today I changed it to a vertical format, moved the shorebird and added some foliage and fallen trees in the water. To me this is what art is all about, regardless of subject, trying to make something that looks good, just like Ken Price.

Sketchbooks and Imagination

Most of the bird and wildlife artists that I most admire use their sketchbooks as the source of subjects for their work, not a collection of photos. Some use photos but only to check the details at times, never as the source of inspiration.

This makes sense to me. And yet it's far easier for me to start working on something by looking at a photo rather than by looking through my sketchbooks. There's just one problem. The work based strictly on photos always seems like an exercise. It may be educational and I may capture a likeness. But there's generally something missing when I look at it.

The problem with using my sketches as the source of artwork is that I really have to use my imagination. There is often too little in the sketches for my mind to make the leap from skimpy sketch to full-fledged idea for artwork.

But when I do I find that I'm able to call upon my imagination, to start putting together a scene based on various sketches. That's the case in the ballpoint pen sketch with dabs of watercolor above.

I've always liked the sketches I did last summer of Twelve-spotted Skimmers. In this case I also liked some of the photos I took of them on dead wildflowers. But the photos were never enough to engage my imagination. The sketches however, especially when combined with other wildlife seen that day, were enough to get me started.

I never saw this particular scene. But the bird and dragonfly were very close to each other, one in the water the other along side of it. So that was enough to make a plausible scene and that's what I've tried here. It's just a small 6x8 sketch. But it may lead to a larger painting or to more experiments with this subject.

And all thanks to a sketchbook full of field sketches.