Something Odd & Something for the Animals

Vote for your favorite 'Odd' themed item from the Trans-Canada Etsy Team here. I might be biased, but I think you should vote for my Arsinoitherium Lady. ;)

I was asked to donate an image to FARP - the Fabulous Animal Rescue Project. You can read about it here. They recuit Etsy sellers to donate images which they use to produce and sell merchandice on Etsy, with all proceeds going to animal rescue charities. things from secret minouette places is a pro-animal shop, being owned by a small, opinionated cat and all. I thought that the protrait of Orbit, aka Lady Giggleswick would be just the thing. She seems the sort of affectionate young canine who would want to spread the love to less fortunate animals.

Dolly Spectrum

I made a second print of my Dolly-the-cloned-sheep block. I was initially thinking of a multi-colour Dolly print, somewhat in the vein of a Warholesque print at the Year of the Rabbit show. I was a bit worried about borrowing that aesthetic - the balance between a little nudge-nudge-wink-wink allusion and cliché is not easy. I also wanted to communicate a sense of movement to allude to the cloning: one Dolly-two Dolly-three Dolly more... So, after printing Dolly on a number of coloured somegami origami kozo (or mulberry paper) sheets, I switched gears and formulated the rainbow-spectrum plan (ROYGBV). The successive Dollies, from red to violet, are placed at smaller seperations to give that sense of movement, like fanning a deck of cards.

The image is a stitched scan. We figured out how to do this with my new scanner and Photoshop, with some swearing and some laughing, but ultimate success last night. So now, I can scan the rest of my larger prints! Sometimes it pays to be extremely stubborn. ;)

Clouds & Hearts

I reprinted my cloud classification linocut on some paler sky blue paper (handmade Moriki Kozo paper from Japan). The clouds represented are shown as they would appear in the sky; the lower altitude clouds are lowest, the mid-altitude clouds in the middle and the high altitude clouds at the top. We have cumulonimbus, stratocumulus and cumulus at the bottom. There are three types of altocumulus and one altostratus in the middle. The top level contains cirrocumulus and two types of cirrus clouds. Each is denoted by its own symbol. I love symbols and the cloud symbols are like some sort of modern, rounder runes of the atmosphere.



The sheets are 17.5 inches wide by 12.6 inches tall (44.4 cm by 32 cm). The second edition contains 4 prints.

Also, I made it to 900 hearts on etsy today! Yay! I love hearts. I really do. Thanks to everyone who has 'favorited' my shop.

Quail

Sometimes I carve a lino block and it doesn't quite come out how I intended. Sometimes this is great, or interesting, or something I live with. Of course, my own taste is no gauge of what others may like. Today, I editioned my quail block, because Reynardin told me how much she liked it. Maybe it's better than I think it is. Based on comments, though I don't think I captured the quintessential quail movement, I at least caught that funny little head-cocking movement they make.







When I lived on Vancouver Island, I regularly saw families of California Quail, bumbling around, looking somewhat officious, yet completely adorable. This is an original lino block printed quail on cream-coloured Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper, 10.5 inches by 7.75 inches or 26.6 cm by 19.7 cm. It is inked à la poupée which means small areas are inked in different colours, using a single lino block. It is one of a first edition of only 8 prints.

Flora & Fauna & Type

I was thinking how much I like to combine flora and fauna and type. I've been looking at my existing prints, finishing editions and printing second edtions of things, like my mushrooms. The Méfiez-vous de la contrafaçon print has never been editioned. I've only printed monoprints (artist's proofs), but they've proven popular, so perhaps I should print en entire edition. (It's 8.5 x 11 inches, or 21.6 cm by 27.9, whereas the 'Fly Agaric' is a wee little print at about 3.5 inches by 6.25 inches or 9 cm by 16 cm, inked à la poupée, or with multiple colours on a single block).

Cretaceous Friends

I decided to list my miniature, multi-media portraits of dinosaurs in vintage, circular, Italian frames. The Trans-Canada Etsy Team challenge theme for the month of February is 'odd'. You have to admit, a Renaissance Arsinoitherium would be odd.





Each is about 3.5 inches or 9 cm in diameter. (Thanks to RJH for the photos).

Hello (cloned) Dolly!

So, this February, the Mad Scientists of Etsy challenge is Keith Campbell the biologist, who was part of the team that produced the cloned sheep Dolly. You remember Dolly? She was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. She was born 5 July 1996. Usually, when the theme is a scientist, I do a portrait. I am a little more wary about the 20th century scientists, because we lack distance. Further, being out-numbered by biologists, on the Mad Scientists team, we do get some characters about whom I know next to nothing. Undoubtedly, Dolly was a big science story, but I know nothing of Campbell and I can't say that naming this sheep, cloned from a mammary cell, for the "most impressive mammaries" really impresses me. Ms. Parton has a great sense of humour, but that doesn't mean that I support objectification. I wouldn't want to be humourless, but people are more than their parts. Likewise, sheep. Though really, I suspect we likely need more distance to fully grasp the ethics of cloning issues too, so this is not that kind of post. No, this is simpler: the really cool thing about block printing is that one gets (or can get) multiple originals so there's a obvious analogy to cloning. The title I'm blaming on the accidental punning headline-writer. After groaning, I decided RJH's comment of "Hello Dolly!" was corny but funny. Plus, I'm obsessed with typography. He also said I chose to "go pink or go home" but I really wanted the contrast with the gray. I must say, my magenta ink is the pits. I wonder if it's a bad batch or whether there's some sort of chemical problem with their emulsifier. Anyhow, enjoy the sheep: edition of 6 on Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper, each sheet is 12.5 inches wide by 10.25 inches tall (31.8 cm by 26 cm).

I must run. I'm in the middle of a symposium on scientific visualization. This is my lunch break.