love birds and drapery

 A busy week in Artlandia!

Work continues on the love bird and rose bush collages started last week.  This week I printed the roses on color paper to collage in.  I decided that they were a little too dark not only due to pressure/ ink, but because they could use another round of carving.  Sometimes, I hesitate to go back into a block that is already so close to completion, but after the second state carving went well on the love birds last week, I decided to go for it, and I think it was the right decision - state proofs below:

Once I had the roses, I turned to deciding which birds to use.  I wanted to try something new with these - I printed them in a non-water soluble ink to see if I could marble after printing. The Answer: yes. I think this might be more efficient because this way I only marble successful prints (no mis-prints on marbled paper). Though I did need to be pretty careful with the marbling to try to place the colors where I wanted them.  

 Once I'd marbled the love birds, I added ink, acrylic, and watercolor.  I cut the flowers and birds out and started arranging trying the different color combinations and placements.

right now I'm working on 3 collages with a blur of kitten-in-motion for scale :)

I was going to carve the foot separately, but decided to draw it in
(my thinking is that I can always cut it off the print and collage in a different
one later, but because the drapery indicates only a single position for
the foot, it's ok to go ahead and carve it in). I can confirm that those are indeed my toes. 

 In addition to the love bird and roses collages, I kept working on the drapery block. It's slow going, but still, progress!

It was very nice to have a two kitty audience again keeping me company while I carved. Junior loooves the carving pillow - I had put it away after Sunny died because it made me too sad to see it out of the corner of my eye and think for a split second that she was there waiting for me. It's funny though because he found it and went right to it.  I wasn't sure what I thought about that at first, but put it back in the room and it quickly became his favorite spot. As much as it was a little sad at first, it's so sweet to look up and see him napping next to me while I work.

Mo, Feline Assistant, Jr. happily napping on the carving pillow

Sunny, last August, doing one of her favorite things in one of her favorite spots 

Since we're on the topic, in other creature news - I caught Mo observing with great interest as Mini pawed at and tried to reach into her food bag (ah, there's a reason it's in a basket suspended off the floor, haha).  It was funny to observe knowledge being passed from one feline generation to the next. 

In terms of canine - feline sibling bonding, I've started letting Mo come in the kitchen with me and Honey. He seems very curious about her, and she seems to love him - though she might prefer that he not lounge in the middle of her bed with her toy, haha: "Um, Human...?" Ah, family bonding :). 

Honey continues to be an excellent hiking buddy, and we're enjoying the summer weather in the woods. 

In addition to our adventures in the woods, we've been spending outside time in the yard. This year's roses are very pretty and the most numerous yet.

Caught the fireworks, in focus and at just the right moment, at night
-photography gold star!

had to capture the stripes in the sky

This week's no filter sunset