Year of the Dog Baren Exchange

Tomorrow will be the Lunar New Year. According to the Chinese zodiac, the year of the dog will have ended, and the year of the pig will begin.

Last year was the first year that I participated in the Baren Forum for Wood Block Printmaking's Chinese New Year card exchange. For that exchange, I made this little hand-colored print of Mary, the chiweenie that we had recently adopted. I received most of the cards from other participants around January-March of last year, though some came later, and it's been fun to have them trickle in. I recently received the last of my dog cards (all that I've received are shown in this post.) Thanks to all of the artists who made these cards, some quirky, some quiet and contemplative, some bold, and some surprising. I absolutely love this little collection.

I am participating in the Year of the Pig exchange, and tomorrow I will post about my print for it.

My Year of the Dog Woodcut

This is a little 2.75" x 4" woodcut of one of our new family dogs - "Mary" (a little, black chiweenie) that I did for this year's Chinese New Year Exchange through the Baren Forum for Woodblock Printmaking. It's the Year of the Dog. I'm going to try some hand-coloring before I decide whether the cards I send out will be black and white or color.

"Le Confiant" by Felix Vollotton

His face presses into her gentle hands. His body melts into the black folds of her gown. In this dark and quiet corner, he is safe. She will never hold these secrets against him.

Relief Prints from the Community Arts Center (Part 1 of 2)

 For another couple weeks the Community Arts Center in Wallingford is exhibiting a huge group show of work by members and faculty. I taught a summer camp there this summer and was very interested in the handful of relief prints by The Printmakers of The CAC in the Stairwell Gallery.

The first two shown here are Rabbit 1(soft block print) and Squirrel 1 (woodcut), both by Jean K. Kristie.

I wouldn't have thought these were by the same artist, despite the general similarities of featuring the whole animal in profile on a dark ground and light backdrop.  The rabbit is more spontaneously rendered, He seems a little nervous and crouched, poised to escape. The squirrel on the other hand is more neat and controlled, just waiting to be stamped onto a greeting card. This rather makes sense to me given that in my experience, wild squirrels tend to be much more comfortable with human presence than are wild rabbits.










The third print featured here is Snow Robbins, a block print by Beth Camagna. This was actually my favorite of the three, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good close-up photograph because the glass caught too much glare. This reminded me a bit of Felix Vollotton's prints that often feature an array of patterns that push the eye all around the composition, and then into little pools of both solid black and solid white for the patterns to flow into and the eye to rest.

Click here to read Part 2.