Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Working small


Completed Face Woodblock
Originally uploaded by m.Lee
Yawn! I have been up for hours yet my brain still hasn't caught up. The problem with taking medicine to sleep is that it does leave me with a bit of a medicine hangover that is hard to shake. But if I don't take the medicine I don't sleep and that is much worse. I'm drinking a pot of tea not. I hope everybody else is having a more alert morning, soon to be after noon than I am.

I haven't carved a new block in so long. The last block I finished carving was the large maple leaf block over two months ago and that wasn't even a new design but something I had started back in November. So I have been doing doodles on paper and on wood. And I can't even remember the last time I carved a block specifically to be used for art cards and only art cards. So now is the perfect time to focus on that, they are quick to carve and the wood is so small the money lost if I mess up is piddly. Not much of a time loss either. The lack of any sort of real risk is something I find freeing when I am in a creative slump.

I carved this face on a 3.5"x4" block of scrap wood. Bigger than an art card so that when I use it I can place the blank cards in different spots for different compositions. On the other side of it I have poppies. The image should look very familiar since it is the same poppies I have been offering in a 6"x6" size for over a year now shrunk down. I was doodling and had a drawn but uncolored and unshrunk shrinkydink pendant lying on my desk that I happened to glance at. I also had a blank art card that I picked up and placed near the future pendant. At that size it would suit an art card quite nicely I realized. So I transfered my drawing onto the wood, got out my magnifying visor to help me carve the tight spaces and carved it.

Now I have quite a few new images to print once I clean off my desk. Then I can print. Other than that today should be pretty quiet and laid back. I think I am going to meet Jon at the Museum of Fine Arts tonight to check out the Edward Hopper exhibit they are having. That museum hasn't had an exhibit that interested me since the Gauguin exhibit back when we first moved here four years ago! Then we will get dinner somewhere in that area. Our favorite Thai resturant is around there but I think both of us would like to find someplace new.

2 comments:

stilettoheights said...

beautiful!!!

Marissa L. Swinghammer said...

I still haven't printed it, or the other blocks I have finished. I could barely move after walking around yesterday and today we had to put together nursery furniture.

I'm also wanting to carve one more small block before getting to printing since that is the hard part for me currently.