Illustration Friday: Asleep

Here is a page from a picture book dummy I made a couple years ago. It's about this little girl, Maybelle (green, with three eyes and a tail) who is afraid of monsters. The story and art kind of got critiqued to death. I've since managed to rewrite the story and it's so much better! Now I just have to get around to redoing the art. I am very fond of Maybelle, though so I'm sure I'll get to it one day.
Happy sleeping everyone!

Sunshine & Paper Cutting

It has been such a cold wet spring in Steamboat. We are all missing the sun terribly. I made this little sun linocut to be part of my series of Colorado prints. This may be the most sun I get for days!

I've been really busy and unfortunately don't have any exciting art to share. I did buy a marvelous book last weekend that I'd love to share though. It's called Paper Cutting: Contemporary Artists, Timeless Crafts

This book features 26 artists who each have their own wonderful styles of cut paper art. The detail of some of the pieces are just amazing! I really love black cut paper against white. I think they have a similar look to relief prints. I keep thinking I'm going to try some but I haven't yet. Here are some photos-

Emily Hogarth

Mia Pearlman

Hina Aoyama



And here is one of my favorites by Su Blackwell



Book show

This is the opening weekend for several Guild of Book Workers shows in Boulder, Colorado at the Norlin Library. My Earth book will be in the show. And I usually never get to see these exhibitions in person but I will be in Boulder on Sunday. I'm looking forward to seeing all of the artist books! They are making a catalog and I'll post a link to it when it's ready.

There is a book idea I've had for many many years. It's the original idea that eventually evolved into my book, Earth. It was a little too complex to actually make though. Now I'm thinking about starting an internet version of it on a new blog. It would be a celebration of the beauty of the Earth as seen from a distance and the importance of the Earth as our only home. I would like to collect quotes and artwork from lots of people. I'm mulling it over and I'd love to hear any thoughts you have!

Birdland

Here is a new drawing I've been working on this week. I'm going to turn it into a linocut. I'll add some motion lines to make it look more like it's flying through the air. I'm excited to start carving it!

Art for Japan auction open right now!

My hand painted linocut Seasons is being auctioned on eBay right now! This is the auction Meg Hunt is organizing. She has really a lot of art that's been donated and mine is in the first batch. Please go check it out! HERE is the listing of the first batch including mine. And HERE is mine by itself.

Update--- My lovely boss Jennifer won the print! Thanks so much to everyone who bid. There are still lots more rounds of auctions to go with different art and you can get the info and links HERE.

A few new images for cards

Here are 3 more small prints for my series of Colorado gift enclosure cards. I meant to make the gondola one last winter but I never did. Oh well, it will be ready for next winter I guess.

I can't WAIT for summer and camping! It's still early spring in Steamboat. We have record amounts of snow in the mountains. We might not be getting the first spring flowers up there until July! At this point, I'm just looking forward to leaves on the trees in town. :)

Virginia Lee Burton

I'm working on some drawings, but nothing ready to share yet. So I thought I'd show the book I just read. Virginia Lee Burton, A Life in Art by Barbara Elleman is full of Virginia's art, photos of her, and info about her life. I'm a big fan of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and The Little House. It was great to read about their development and the ways Virginia's life influenced her stories.

In addition to her children's books, she and her group of design students and friends called the Folly Cove Designers made beautiful fabric patterns with linoleum prints on cloth. They carved a lot of large prints and it must have been a huge undertaking to print that much fabric! I guess they started out printing on the floor by laying the fabric down, putting the inked block upside-down and stomping on it. Eventually they got a press. Here's a print of the creative process.

I really loved the photos of Virginia also. Here's one of her with her two sons looking at a painting she did on the wall. What a wonderful, vibrant artist she was!