Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #8: Cut Lace

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

The last of 8 original woodcut art cards for my Indiegogo fundraising campaign is complete! These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

I wanted to make a card that featured some lettering, and wasn't sure what word or short phrase to include. I decided on the word "cut" only partially because it is related to the process of making woodcuts, Mainly I chose it because I enjoyed the contrast between such a harsh-sounding word and a piece of lace that is delicate, and abruptly cropped. 

Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #7: Sphinx in Sweater

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

This is the sixth of 8 original woodcut art cards being created during my Indiegogo fundraising campaign. These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

This card depicts a hairless cat wearing a sweater. Enough said. 

Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #6: Ammonite

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

This is the sixth of 8 original woodcut art cards being created during my Indiegogo fundraising campaign. These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

Yesterday I posted card #5 depicting a nautilus shell. Today's print depicts the fossilized shell of an extinct ammonite. One of my upcoming book projects will be illustrating the poem The Nautilus and the Ammonite, anonymously written, in which two aquatic cousins form a friendship, travel and witness great sights together, until the ammonite is lost in the same mass extinction that ended the reign of dinosaurs. 

Writing about another ammonite fossil woodcut in October of last year, I outlined some of the reasons why I think these creatures have captured so much of my attention. 

Click here to view all the blog posts featuring my ammonite prints. 

Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #5: Nautilus

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

This is the fifth of 8 original woodcut art cards being created during my Indiegogo fundraising campaign. These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

As those who have been following this blog over the past year know, I've been particularly interested in ammonite fossils. The Nautilus is a close relative and also has a spiral shell. One of my upcoming book projects will be illustrating the poem The Nautilus and the Ammonite. 

Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #4: Cat Chachki

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

This is the fourth of 8 original woodcut art cards being created during my Indiegogo fundraising campaign. These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

This was inspired by a set of nesting dolls (all painted to look like cats) my daughter received from her grandparents for Christmas one year. 

Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #3: Owl Chachki

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

This is the third of 8 original woodcut art cards being created during my Indiegogo fundraising campaign. These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

This was inspired by a little owl chachki that lives on a shelf at one of my friends' houses. I was babysitting all our kids one day and ended up drawing it, and that eventually lead to this image. 

Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #2: Portrait of Frida Kahlo

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

This is the second of 8 original woodcut art cards being created during my Indiegogo fundraising campaign. These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

This is a portrait of Frida Kahlo. Kahlo was one of the first artists whose work captured my attention and influenced my own work. I first learned about her paintings when I was in junior high. At the age of 17 I had the good fortune to visit Mexico, including her home which has been turned into an art museum. In graduate school, even though I wasn't looking at or thinking much about Kahlo's work, faculty and fellow students regularly brought Kahlo's influence up in critiques of my work.

I intended this print to simply be a black and white art card. However, after creating it I realized how well it lends itself to hand-coloring. The color version is printed on watercolor paper.

Both cards are for sale on my Etsy store. The black and white version can be found here, and the color can be found here. All proceeds from Etsy sales between now and April 24th go directly to fund Words On Woodcuts Press!   

Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #1: Portrait of Edward Lear

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

This is the first of 8 original woodcut art cards being created during my Indiegogo fundraising campaign. These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

All 8 will also be for sale at my Etsy Store. This card can be purchased now by clicking here. All proceeds from Etsy sales between now and April 24th go directly to fund Words On Woodcuts Press!

This is a portrait of Edward Lear, the 19th century writer/illustrator who authored The Owl and the Pussycat.

Here's one of my favorite limericks also penned by Lear:

There was a Young Person of Smyrna, 
Whose Grandmother threatened to burn her; 
But she seized on the cat,
And said, "Granny, burn that!
You incongruous Old Woman of Smyrna!" 

"Marine Iguana"

"Marine Iguana"
Woodcut (4 layer reduction)
3.5" x 2.5" 
Water-based inks on Rives BFK 
Limited edition of 6

Another little print in celebration of Darwin Day (February 12th) - a colorful, little marine iguana art card. For sale on my Etsy store here. 

Finches for Darwin Day

Both of these prints are 2.5" x 3.5", 4 layer reduction woodcuts. I decided to do a few ACEOs of animals discovered by Darwin during his voyage to the Galapagos Islands in celebration of Darwin Day, coming up this Tuesday. Up next: marine iguanas!

"Masked Owl" (ACEO)

Woodcut, 4 layer reduction
Water-based inks on Rives BFK
2.5" x 3.5"

I plan to make a lot of these little art cards. Probably mostly reductions in editions of six. I'm using the Blick brand water based block printing ink, and the stuff dries so fast and gets so tacky. It is usually very annoying to use (I only use it for small projects such as this, normally I use oil based inks) but at least it offers interesting effects such as happened in the background sky of this image. 

"Purple Dove" ACEO

Woodcut, 4 layer reduction
Water-based inks on Rives BFK
2.5" x 3.5"

I've decided to try making ACEOs again. (Click here if you want to know what those are.) I did a few while in graduate schools years ago, but then I got busy with school and distracted by bigger projects. After that I sort of forgot about them. Right now is sort of a perfect time in my life to make them since I only get small spurts of time to work on my art, and my schedule is unpredictable.

So... apparently some doves are purple .