Goodbye to Sunny Point

My residency at the Arts Center of Yates County Sunny Point has ended. Now I'm back in Philadelphia with a whole stack of screenprints, linocuts, woodcuts, blocks, and a completed dummy book draft of The Nautilus and the Ammonite - hooray!

A big, heartfelt thank-you goes out to everyone at the Arts Center who made this opportunity possible. These ten days of peace and solitude were exactly what I needed to get a jump on this project.

As part of the thank-you, I left behind three works of art: a linocut/watercolor study of the "Nautilus" and "Ammonite" characters as I plan to depict them in the book titled "Twin Sisters of the Sea" and the "Plesiosaur" and "Plesiosaur Fossil" woodcuts printed in Prussian blue ink on paper where I did a watercolor and salt wash.


The photograph of me carving and group photo of me with the Board of Directors (see below) were taken by photographer Howard LeVant.

For fellow artists (including performing artists as well as writers) interested in applying for artist residencies, the wonderful resource I use to find appropriate opportunities is the Alliance of Artist Communities.

Stegosaurus

In addition to Plesiosaurs and Tyrannosaurs Rex from my last post, I have made this Stegosaurus. This is just a proof. As far as placement goes, he's likely to be lurking somewhere in the background of The Nautilus and the Ammonite picturebook.

Plesiosaurs and Tyrannosaurus Rex

More work that I've been doing at the Sunny Point Artist Residency. These are first proofs of woodcuts that are intended to be part of the backgrounds in my book project The Nautilus and the Ammonite. The book is mostly set during the Cretaceous period, hence the dinosaurs in the background. 

Okay, technically plesiosaurs are marine reptiles but not dinosaurs, but lived during the same epoch and went extinct in the same event. Plus they are equally amazing-looking ancient fossils that have deeply captured peoples' imaginations ever since their discovery. 

I selected wood boards with dense grain and really took the wire brush to it in order to bring out the organic textures, emphasize flatness, and give the creatures a more ghostly appearance. I'm especially loving the knot in the live plesiosaur. 

Ammonite and Nautilus Shells

Here's some work I've been doing at the Sunny Point Artist Residency. These are reduction linocuts of the Ammonite and Nautilus shells for my new book. Throughout the book the two characters remain the same size and orientation, although their colors change to emphasize changes in mood. The soft parts of their bodies will be included in the final illustrations, but I'm doing those as watercolor paintings. I did the shells as linocuts to give them a more smooth, graphic look to contrast with the more expressively painted soft parts of their bodies, and also in contrast to the rugged woodcuts of other prehistoric plants and animals that will appear in the backgrounds.

I'm At Sunny Point!

I am currently fulfilling a ten day artist residency at the Arts Center of Yates County Sunny Point. Sunny Point is a beautiful bit of land on Keuka Lake which includes a little white cottage, a large red barn studio, and a garage that is currently being converted into a ceramic studio. It was donated to the Art Center by the late Dr. Annie Smith (author of Bearing Up Cancer, among many other accomplishments) as a place for creativity and healing. Any artists interested in applying for residencies at Sunny Point click here.

So as you, dear readers, might imagine, I'm in a state of bliss. In the past I've enjoyed a number of writing and visual art retreats/residencies, and from 2004-2006 I spent two years immersed in a graduate studio. But this is the first time in seven years that I've had the opportunity to focus completely on my art-making in total peace and solitude for any concentrated period of time. Basically the first time since I had my lovely daughters (who I do miss terribly; they are coming to visit soon!) So I feel as if I am deeply savoring this residency more than any previously.

Even though I've been working in the studio like mad, I don't have anything quite finished enough to share yet. Probably tomorrow. I can say that I'm finally getting some real headway on my new book, The Nautilus and the Ammonite. Screen printing, linocuts, woodcuts, and watercolor painting are all involved, and things are going swimmingly.