Sometimes I put aside a carving project - like this Nepalese mountain print - when I can't figure out what direction to head. I posted about this print last August as I was carving a block of Shina wood for the mountain detail. The sky stumped me, though, so it was put on the back burner for five months. Now I have a plan I'm excited about and have printed the first two of four blocks (two wood and linoleum blocks each). I was happy with the semitransparent darker color having battled some new registration issues. Who knew it would be so difficult to register both lino and wood blocks for the same print?

Mountain Relief Print - Work in Progress

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.