"Great Lakes Basin" by Jenny Pope

Image posted with the permission of the artist. Jenny Pope's website can be visited here. She also has a blog and Etsy store. Pope wrote about her inspiration for this image here.

A rush of cool air swims by. What is this place? A forest of black trees layered by white snow? Flocks of giant crows and flying dragons. The sun, like a great eye shines no warmth over me. I feel I am tipping over, rendered dizzy by the motion, the lack of gravity. Is this a parallel dimension or another world? I do a double take and see that I am all wrong. Not a forest, but a great undersea floor teeming with life. No sun, crows, or dragons, but swift and slippery sea creatures. Fish, and eels, and a prickly blanket of zebra mussels. Sharp points, sharp contrast of black and white, deep blue and yellow-orange, like gnashing teeth, hungry and searching for a meal in an overcrowded... Bathtub!? Yes indeed, and it leaps into the scene like an angry cat, and the fish and eels panic and scatter, and all is cold and slippery chaos.

Mabel Royds's Bathing Children

A splash across the skin and the dirt is gone. It floats away on the rippling surface of the water. Water that surrounds ankles and knees of children. They bend and stretch, contorting their bodies in their attempts to cleanse every crease and patch of skin.

Their mother is crouched down, the length of her body folded down like an accordion to meet the children on their level. Her patient gaze follows the vertical lines of her daughter's dripping, wet hair. She is beside them, but separated by the white of her robes. These, and her being positioned curved away from the children reveal her to be merely an observer. And yet, while she is not a participant in the act of bathing, she is held captive by the activity. Bent into the square of the image's composition, the mother is unable to stand or walk away. In contrast, her son's arm gracefully sweeps up out of the frame. Like the water, she is necessarily present, but not really the subject matter.

"Blood Will Have Blood" Now On Sale for Kindle

My mom, Kathleen Knox, is now offering her novel Blood Will Have Blood for sale for Amazon's Kindle. It is "a modern retelling of the tale of Hamlet the Dane... with vampires." Just in time for Halloween, and priced right at $2.99 - check it out!

Of course this is being featured on my blog because I designed the cover with a woodcut. I wrote about the woodcut itself on a earlier blog post here.

"Kensington" by Robin Zebley

Image used with the permission of the artist. More about Robin Zebley and her work can be viewed at her website and her Etsy store.

She slips out of the shadows, a narrow opening between two weathered wood planks reminiscent of barns. But this is a city cat. Not that it matters all that much... the life expectancy is the same. Thick, matted hair protects against the unpredictable and extreme changes in weather. Light feet and wily eyes always on alert for deadly dogs and potential prey.

The structures of cities, just as those of the farm, will eventually crumble and decay. So much more quickly do living things die. We are all but ghosts, slipping into this life for a moment, then passing away, like a stray cat who appears in a darkened corridor, then darts back into the black abyss, never to be seen again.

"Fixing Wires" by Lill Tschudi

It's a good day to be outside. The heat of summer has run off and disappeared like a stray cat down the alley. Just enough clouds to take the edge off the sun's glare, and a cool breeze to stave off bugs and clear out car exhaust and other bad smells of the city. The sort of gentle wind that moves like a kid on a bike cruising down a quiet, residential street. A wind that makes music as it blows though tree branches covered with leaves that are just beginning to turn yellow and brown, and the narrow spaces between buildings. A good day to be a garbage collector, mail carrier, or electrical worker fixing wires.  

"Animal Onigiri Fantasia" by Ayu Tomikawa

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More about Ayu Tomikawa and her art can be found at her Etsy Store.

The sounds of humming, slurping, and lips smacking run through my mind as I gaze at this image. Refreshing blue, fresh green, and juicy red and orange shapes bedazzle these figures as they chow down. Rice balls turn into speckled zoo animals, who will disappear down the open, oval mouth of cat-boy. Meanwhile, behind him a much stranger creature (caterpillar antennae, pig feet, butterfly wings) stands and eagerly drinks from her over-sized bowl. Are they costumed children or chimeras? Innocent diners or cannibalistic specters? I'm not sure, but I long to join them in their tasty feast.

"Vampire Skull"

Two layer reduction, Artist's Proof, 8" x 12".

I'm trying my hand at some more illustration work. My mother has written a vampire novel based on Hamlet, and soon it will be available for sale for Kindle. An image of a skull with sharp, elongated canines seemed an obvious choice. When the final cover design is finished and the book goes to market, I will announce it on this blog. The image I'm using for the finished cover is actually a four-layer reduction in slightly different colors. I did this image as a one-of-a-kind extra because I wanted to see what just these two layers looked like in red and black. This print is available for purchase here. 

Overall I'm pleased with this print. It is accurately drawn, detailed, and graphic enough to catch the eye, while at the same time the grain of the wood and the carved marks are prominently featured. I like how the vampire teeth don't jump out at you right away; at first glance it appears to simply be an illustration of a human skull.

I also like that this doesn't look like my typical work. I feel my style, with its bright colors, primitive aesthetic elements, and bizarre, sometimes silly or kitschy imagery, isn't a good fit with my mother's fiction. I knew I would have to try something different for these book covers (she has several novels which I hope to design covers for soon.)  I hope to create a series of woodcuts which are a little more subtle in color palette and purely mood-based than my fine art prints.