I traveled back to the Midwest for Christmas and New Year's and kept my eye out for prints along the way. Here are some shots from St. Louis and Chicago.

Chicago

Gouges sharpened, my first 2012 project is based on an old Italian sports car I saw last year. It's going to be a multi-block print using lino and wood.

1958 Nardi Blue Ray II Relief Print

I ran across this video - A Brief Introduction to Relief Printmaking by Thomas Shahan - on Twitter today. I thought it gave a really nice overview of the process of carving and printing woodcuts and linocuts.

I had never been to a NightLife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences, so Thursday evening was terrific fun. So strange to be hanging out with the animals and exhibits at night, while everyone enjoyed music and cocktails. The 40 participating artists were broken up into groups and here's what our area in the African Hall looked like. My table (with the blue and gray tablecloths closest to the camera) was next to the penguin tank, which was perfect.

On the off chance you're interested, a printmaking interview I did for Printsy (a team of printmakers from Etsy.com) was recently posted. I found it a little nerve-wracking to so publicly describe myself, but now it's out there!

Last weekend's art and craft fairs in San Francisco and Albany were a blast. My wife took some photos of my Bazaar Bizarre printmaking demo setup. A big thank you to everyone who stopped by.

The Season - 10"x13" Linocut

Bazaar Bizarre starts in San Francisco tomorrow and I've finished carving the holiday linocut for printing during the fair.

I've also packaged some newly finished prints like this winter linocut to the right. This poster celebrates the start of ski and snowboard season, which is always a great time of year. I previously posted about this print when it was in-progress.