snow leopard, automata, marbling

A busy week in Artlandia. I'm very excited to be preparing for a new animation. In preparation, I marbled a round of paper that, hopefully, will make up a sky - thumbs up.

I also printed new swallows for the same project.  This was funny to me because I feel like I printed so many swallows, but because I used them all in the swallows installation, I actually didn't have any for the animation. Also, I wanted to try printing them in a color. 

Another project in the works is trying to finish the seven deadly sins series now that the first three in that series have returned home after a stint proudly representing in the Zea Mays Flat File.  I cut out the recent polyester lithography prints of the new automata birds that may (or may not) find their way into new work.

As part of the same series, I also started on the life-scale snow leopard. Right now the plan is to carve the head and tail in linoleum and the body into MDF.  I did the tail first and then the head. 

in process 12 x 26" block

in process - 12 x 12" block

3 hours later

This is interesting because one questions I sometimes get is "how long did that take?" Even though I can anticipate the question, I never really know the answer. The preparation time before carving varies widely depending on factors such as, how much research I feel I need to do and whether I've ever carved a similar block before. The actual carving time also varies, making it hard to estimate, but this case was helpful because I took the first photo after one sitting, about 3 - 4 hours, got up, got a snack and took Honey out, posted the photo, then decided to resume working. When I was done for the night, I photographed and posted the second state. Because of the time stamps, I know this was a single day session with about 3 hours between the photos, so this is a single day of 7-8 hours of carving (with breaks for human and pet bio-needs). I'll probably do one more carving session before proofing, then, depending how the proof looks, possibly one more quick round.

Speaking of the creature family - Mini was a big help on this.  At one point I was questioning the direction of the fur on the nose, and she happily sat and purred while I petted her head and stared at her nose - what a helper :). She's taking her role as sole Feline Assistant very seriously and has been sticking close to me in the studio. I love having her with me and at the same time I miss Sunny. It helps knowing Mini misses her too - here are some of my favorite pictures of them doing "synchronized napping."

Outside the studio, but still art-related - my Muse seems to approve of the snow leopard/ sphinx project. I know because look what just went into the windows of the local auction house - haha.




And our nature shots for the week:

no-filter-sunset

tree cloaked in sky