Nautilus and Ammonite: Summer Smiles

The next finished artwork for the Nautilus and the Ammonite book project. This is the fourth stanza and also the fourth double-page spread.

They swam 'mid isles whose summer smiles Were dimmed by no alloy; Whose groves were palm, whose air was balm, And life one only joy.

Nautilus and Ammonite: Sinking Into the Deep

The next finished artwork for the Nautilus and the Ammonite book project. This is the second stanza and also the second double-page spread. 

For each could swim on the ocean's brim,
     And, when wearied, its sail could furl,
And sink to sleep in the great sea-deep,
     In its palace all of pearl.  

Nautilus and Ammonite: Friendly Strife

The next finished artwork for the Nautilus and the Ammonite book project. It is here that the young, twin sisters of the sea meet for the first time. 






The nautilus and the ammonite
     Were launched in friendly strife,
Each sent to float in its tiny boat
     On the wide, wide sea of life. 

"Large Marge Sent Me" by Brie Thompson

Image used with the permission of the artist. Brie Thompson's online store is Lake Effect Press. More images of her work in process can be found on her Instagram account. She is involved with the member-run, non-profit print studio Flight 64.

I'm particularly interested in this print for a number of selfish reasons. First, I'm working on a book that features a lot of dinosaur imagery. Second, it is a screenprint that used linocut as part of the process, and for my recent book project I learned to screenprint and have been figuring out how to best incorporate that method with my woodcuts. Third, it is bright and colorful, and I'm trying to get back to some of that in my work.

Of course I enjoy the blunt, kitschiness of this image. The giant "Eat" sign recalls memories of not just actual roadside diner advertisements, but similarly generic, get-right-down-to-the-point ads appearing in media for entertainment - television shows, movies, picturebooks. And then there's the big dinosaur, which appears more akin to plastic children's toys and cartoons than actual prehistoric carnivores.

But there is also something tragic in this fabricated beastie's lonesome stance against the yellow sky streaked with hasty markings. Something hollow in his black eyes and perfect row of tiny teeth. Something achingly compulsive about the giant sign that commands onlookers to do that which requires no encouragement.

Nautilus and Ammonite: Plesiosaur Pages

Plesiosaur  and Plesiosaur Fossil  
Double page spreads 11-12 and 13-14 
Screenprint, woodcut, linocut, watercolor, and collage on Rives BFK 
22” x 14” each 

Sometimes it's hard to get a project started, and other times it's difficult to complete one. Especially if the process is lengthy. I have already enjoyed many successes along the way to creating the artwork for my third book, but making final, permanent decisions about works can be rather daunting. Particularly, I worry about overworking a piece and inadvertently destroying the most lively aspects of what I've already done.

Just over a year ago I completed the storyboard, dummy book, and screenprinted backgrounds and began linocuts and woodcuts for the pages in The Nautilus and the Ammonite book. However, I had not yet finished any artwork of actual pages until this week. The idea for the project came almost two years ago, and I had done some preparatory work for it with sketches and learning to make screenprints, but the project really got off the ground during my residency last September at Sunny Point. Unfortunately, soon after that residency I ended having to sell my house and move, and so the project was put on the backburner for months, and it is only recently that I've been very slowly pulling myself (dragging, really) back into the mindset necessary to complete the work.

These are the first two completed artwork for double-page spreads, not including the text that will eventually be added. I was so afraid to pull the trigger on making final decisions for these works, but now that I've done it I am quite pleased with the results. I don't think I'll be diving back into this project at full speed, but this is at least the catalyst I needed to at least pick up the pace and feel more confident about the direction the project is taking.

The text that is meant to accompany these pages goes as such:

And the monsters vast of ages past

They beheld in their ocean caves;

They saw them ride in their power and pride,

And sink in their deep-sea graves.

Dinosaur Screen Prints

It took over six months, but I finally got back to Maryland to do some more screen printing with my friend and fellow artist C. W. Brooks. Last time I did studies of ammonites. This time, another group of creatures that died out in the K-T Extinction: dinosaurs. 

This is related to what I was working on last time because it is preparatory work for a new book project: The Nautilus and the Ammonite, a picture book based on this anonymously-written poem. It tells the tale of two friends who float, swim, and witness wonders together. Tragically, the ammonite passes away, leaving the nautilus to continue on alone, hoping someday to be reunited. It is a moving narrative that opens many avenues of thought that I long to explore through visual imagery. 

Back in December the idea of making a book was still a mere notion. But I applied for residencies to begin serious work on the project and was accepted to the Sunny Point Artist-In-Residence program through the Arts Center of Yates County.  For ten days in September, I'll be devoting nearly every waking moment to developing the story board and first finished imagery for this new book. Exciting, no? 


Anyway, clearly there must be some dinosaurs in this book, at least in the background, as it is set during the Cretaceous. Plus it will be a picture book and children love dinosaurs. Come to think of it, who doesn't love dinosaurs? 

Roar. 



This last photo is of Brooks cleaning up. The canvas hat keeps hair out of their screenprints.

Screen Print Studies of Nautilus and Ammonite

I spent another weekend with C. W. Brooks in their studio at the University of Maryland. This time they talked me into trying something new: screen printing! The process is so antithetical to what I normally do with woodcuts. No laborious carving, no grain to battle against or yield to, no splinters - bah.

Just to get started, I made two studies comparing one of my beloved, extinct ammonites to one of its living cousins, a nautilus. I want to eventually develop them into characters for a picture book (that's all I'm sharing about that right now.)

If I go back and try more screen printing, I'll probably attempt some landscapes. Those flat fields of color produced by the process just seem so far away. Another thought I had was to look at a lot of prints and wall hangings by Inuit artists because their unique ways of depicting figures in space lends itself well to screen printing.

Brooks was also screen printing. They look good in blue.