In My Yard: "Cabbage White"

Woodcut
Black ink with hand coloring with watercolors
3" x 4" (image)
For sale here. 

This is the seventh in a series for a single sheet handmade book called In My Yard. This book will be submitted to the exhibition Ritual taking place in December in Philadelphia. 

Nobody seems to get all that excited about these butterflies, I suppose because they are everywhere (at least in Philadelphia) and just plain white. But they are lovely, especially when they land on a brightly-colored flower that sets off their delicate, white wings. 

In My Yard: "Bumble Bee"

Woodcut
Black ink with hand coloring with watercolors
3" x 4" (image) 
For sale here. 

This is the sixth in a series for a single sheet handmade book called In My Yard. This book will be submitted to the exhibition Ritual taking place in December in Philadelphia. 

I love the bees that the flowers in my garden attract. In addition to helping pollination, they keep the riffraff away. 

In My Yard: "Painted Lady"

Woodcut
Black ink with hand coloring with watercolors
3" x 4" (image)
For sale here. 

This is the fifth in a series for a single sheet handmade book called In My Yard. This book will be submitted to the exhibition Ritual taking place in December in Philadelphia. 

This is my second print of one of the painted lady butterflies that graced our garden all summer long. (Here's the first.) I like the more dramatic, sunburst composition and bright color of this one. I played with the scale a bit and made the butterfly a little bigger relative to the flower, and I enjoy how its placement in the center makes it almost seem as if the flower pedals are an extension of the butterfly's body 

In My Yard: "Leopard Slug"

Woodcut
Black ink with hand coloring with watercolors
3" x 4" (image)
For sale here. 

This is the fourth in a series for a single sheet handmade book called In My Yard. This book will be submitted to the exhibition Ritual taking place in December in Philadelphia. 

We find leopard slugs all over our neighborhood. These slugs are really quite pretty (you know, for slugs). But they are an invasive species in this part of the country, so at one of the nature centers we go to we enjoy catching them and feeding them to the turtles. 

In My Yard: "Summer Finch"

Woodcut
Black ink with hand coloring with watercolors
3" x 4" (image)
For sale here. 

This is the third in a series for a single sheet handmade book called In My Yard. This book will be submitted to the exhibition Ritual taking place in December in Philadelphia. 

The first summer after we bought our current home I planted a forest of sunflowers in the front yard (see below photo.) I wanted to make my mark on the block. The result was that finches who resided in the large tree across the street began regularly feeding on the sunflower seeds. It was delightful to hang out on my front porch and watch these brightly-colored birds (American goldfinches turn yellow during the summer) fly back and forth and nimbly perch on the thick stems of my ten foot high flower garden. 

"Scarlett" (Finished Book)

I finished the first of three single-sheet, 8-page books which I plan to  submit it to the exhibition Ritual taking place in December in Philadelphia. I have some from this limited edition of only 6 for sale also on my Etsy Store, click here. I'm definitely going to keep one with the idea that I might scan it in the future and make high quality reproductions which could be sold much cheaper. 

The whole sheet of paper measures 10" x 17", so when it is folded each page measures 4.25" x 5". It is printed on white Subi paper. The images are created entirely of hand-carved, hand-printed woodblock prints. The whole thing took about 32 hours of work over 9 days. 

Front Cover

Pages 2 and 3

Pages 4 and 5

Pages 6 and 7

Back Cover

Proof of "Scarlett"

This is a little 4" x 4" color woodcut I made using four blocks. My intention is to make a small book with 6 different versions (using the same blocks but different colors) and submit it to the exhibition Ritual taking place in December in Philadelphia. I printed this proof so I could get a better sense of what I have and can decide what colors I should use for the 6 different versions. The title is because this is meant to depict a little screech owl named "Scarlett" who was rescued (she is blind in one eye) and is kept and used for educational shows at the Briar Bush Nature Center.