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!" 

Owl and Cat in Love, Cover

"Owl and Cat in Love"
Woodcut (reduction)
11.75" x 11.25" (image)16" x 15" (paper)
Oil based inks on Sulphite Block Printing Paper 
Limited edition of 3

After over a year and a half, all the art for my visual re-telling of Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat is complete! Now it's time to put together a proposal package and begin seeking a publisher. 

Words can't express how much I've benefited from the encouragement of my friends, family (especially you, mom), colleagues, and this blog's readers. Even if you never comment here or on facebook, seeing the number of pageviews increase over time, and increase the most when I've been posting the newest images from this project, have kept my confidence high when I've felt overwhelmed  by other responsibilities and when I was slowed down by illness. Thank you all so much. 

I'll be taking about a 3 week break from studio work, and then I plan to maybe do some highfalutin serious art before diving into the next book. Not sure where the muse aims to take me, but no doubt it'll involve wood blocks and chisels. 

Owl and Cat in Love, "Dancing Under the Moon" (final image, page 29)

"Dancing Under the Moon"
Woodcut (reduction)
11.25" x 11.75" (image)15" x 16" (paper)
Oil based inks on Sulphite Block Printing Paper 
Limited edition of 3

After their wedding, Owl and Cat dance on the beach under the moon. I have to wonder just what kind of mincemeat is in that bowl. 

Now that the story is all told (although I do have the cover, which I'll post tomorrow) I'm thinking about the role that color has played throughout this whole journey. It seems the whole story is really about this couple holding on to the primal glue that binds them together as everything else, including their own bodies, constantly shifts in tone, distorts, or dissolves. While the colors and types of setting (field, interior, seas, forest) might drastically change from page to page, the protagonists are always woven into their environment. Here, too, they almost melt into the chaotic sky. They fit in wherever they go and make it seem easy and natural. They succeed in changing together, and that is the key to their Love.

Although I've used the emphasized wood grain in most of the images for this book, this is the only image where I use a knot as part of the composition. Given that they just got married, I know there's a bad pun in there somewhere. 

Owl and Cat in Love, "Wedding" (double page spread pages 27-28)

"Wedding"
Woodcut (reduction)
9.5" x 20" (image)
15" x 24" (paper)
Oil based inks on Sulphite Block Printing Paper 
Limited edition of 3

It isn't so much that the Land Where the Bong Tree Grows is the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos Islands are more symbolic than that for this retelling of Lear's poem. All of the animals indigenous to the islands and pictured in this wedding's congregation are famous for having undergone an evolutionary transformation that makes them unique from their ancestral cousins on the mainland. So, too, have Owl and Cat undergone a transformation through their union (just imagine the kids!) Also, there aren't any turkeys or piggy wigs found on the Galapagos.  

Owl and Cat in Love, "Welcome" (double page spread pages 25-26)

"Welcome" (parts 1 and 2)
Woodcuts (reduction)
Each is 11.25" x 11.75" (image), 15" x 16" (paper)
Oil based inks on Sulphite Block Printing Paper 
Limited editions of 3 each

The pair who have been spying on Owl and Cat for the past three double-page spreads are finally noticed. They reveal themselves as ambassadors of the island bearing gifts of beaded necklaces which match ones they themselves wear. The message is this: We, the natives of this island, accept and welcome you to our tribe.

Up until this point, Owl and Cat have been a nation of two. Now, they have found a whole new community in which they can redefine themselves as a couple. 

Owl and Cat in Love, "Nesting" (double page spread pages 23-24)

"Nesting"
Woodcut (reduction)
9.5" x 20" (image)
15" x 24" (paper)
Oil based inks on Sulphite Block Printing Paper 
Limited edition of 3

Every once in a while I find a picture book that features a vertical double page spread that requires the reader to turn the book sideways. I just love that; the illustrator throwing out something a little unexpected, forcing me to move my hands, shift weight around, and really pay a little closer attention to what's in front of my eyes. I simply had to do it with this book.

Here Cat and Owl are going back to their arboreal roots, having built their own literal love nest on their new island home.

And still they are being spied on by natives who they have yet to meet. That's coming in the next double page spread.

Owl and Cat in Love, "Provisions and Pawn" (double page spread pages 7-8)

"Provision" and "Pawn"
Woodcuts (reduction)
Each is 11.25" x 11.75" (image), 15" x 16" (paper)
Oil based inks on Subi paper
Limited editions of 2 each

Finally finished another double page spread in Owl and Cat In Love. This is of course from the line "They took some honey, and plenty of money" in Lear's original poem. I wanted to give a sense that at this point the owl and cat live in a rather developed world, but they are about to take off on an adventure into a more wild and primitive existence. A little foreshadowing of their future adventures on the sea and in the forest are suggested by the patterns on the arches.

Owl and Cat in Love, "Love At First Sight" (images 3 and 4)

"When Owl Saw Cat" and "When Cat Saw Owl"
Woodcuts (reduction)
Each is 11.25" x 11.75" (image), 15" x 16" (paper)
Oil based inks on Subi paper
Limited editions of 5 each

Here it is, the second double-page spread of my picture book Owl and Cat in Love. The moment the two first meet. (Over a very unlucky rabbit, as we shall see in the next double-page spread.)

Next week I have to take another little hiatus from this project to do some alternate prints for Cats A-Z, but I'll be back on this project after July 7th, so stay tuned!

Owl and Cat in Love (Image 2)

"Cat Hunting A Rabbit"
Woodcut (reduction)
11.25" x 11.75" (image)
15" x 16" (paper)
Oil based inks on Subi paper
Limited edition of 5

Now that the Cats A-Z book is finished I have resumed work on Owl and Cat in Love, my purely visual re-telling of Edward Lear's poem "The Owl and the Pussycat". 

Here we have page 2! The brown color for the rabbit and cat are brighter and more orange than I did for page 1 because I thought that first print was a bit darker than I wanted. One decision I might make for the final book version is to use the brighter brown for the rabbit in the foreground, and the darker brown for the owl/cat that are swooping/pouncing on their prey.

Thankfully we live in this wonderful digital age where I can modify the colors however I like after the fact. This gives me the flexibility to experiment more as I make each woodcut. If I find certain color combinations work better, I can go back and digitally make the changes to any previous images so that they all fit together in the finished book. Apparently this is becoming the norm for a lot of artists of my generation. The Japanese have a word which refers to change, but that also translates to "the sadness of things." But here we see that sometimes change is wonderful!

Owl and Cat In Love (Image 1)

"Owl Hunting A Rabbit"
Woodcut (reduction)
11.25" x 11.75" (image)
15" x 16" (paper)
Oil based inks on Subi paper
Limited edition of 5
Available for purchase here.

I've started illustrating "Owl and Cat in Love" (working title), a story in pictures based on Edward Lear's poem "The Owl and the Pussycat". This will be done entirely with woodcuts, hopefully eventually for a published picture book. The story is going to elaborate on Lear's poem with additional scenes and details and for some elements I plan to divert entirely from the poem. In addition, I'd like each image to work as a stand-alone work of art. This is page one. Much more to come!

#21 - 30 Prints in 30 Days (The Owl and the Pussycat by the Light of the Moon)

"The Owl and the Pussycat by the Light of the Moon"

Linocut over collograph with foam pieces

6" x 4" (image)

7.75" x 6" (on white Subi paper)

8" x 6.5" (on blue Subi paper)

White available for purchase here.

Blue available for purchase here.

This starts to get a little closer to what I was thinking about while working on yesterday's print of an owl. They look so much like cats, and yet not like cats. It might even be the similarities and differences between the appearance of cats and owls, and not between owls and other birds, that makes me think of the owl as so bizarre-looking. I'd like to explore this further. Maybe illustrate that old Edward Lear poem.