Parasaurolophus Print

 

5x6.5

print on bristol board

For those of you who might have been paying attention, I did a sketch of said Parasauropholus, the very best of all the hadrosaurs, sometime back. January, to be precise. All with the intention of doing a linocut, then the print. Which is what you see above. 

I had meant to do a Substack about the process and have that ready last month. As you can see, that didn't happen. But, it will. Tomorrow, in fact, I will do a post and show the process and more of the prints. When I was printing yesterday, I decided on red ink (kind of looks orange, but I didn't mind), but I poured some out over some dried black ink thinking that it's dry, it won't reactivate. Did I mention that I'm kind of sort of new to all this? So, as I was going along, the two colors mixed and I was getting some cool looking images. Now, I don't know the exact rules as far as numbering goes when the color changed a bit during the process, but I'm going with 1-12, with the one you see above the 1st of the 12. I'll need to check with my Jedi linocut master, John Benson to get the correct way of doing things. 

So, tomorrow. The process. 

And, I would like to re-mention that the above design was inspired by the logo done for the band Beat by Dan Ermy. He did a very cool looking elephant head that they use for their backdrop,

Saint-Exupery Woodblock Printing Process

 

The process as to how my print of Antoine Saint-Exupery came to be is now up on my Substack.

Leaf Printing Class

 I needed an artistic distraction from things, so last Saturday I attended a leaf printing class with Nobuko Yamasaki at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. They have been having some good classes with some good peeps, so it was much needed. I brought some leaves from trees in our yard, both front and back and used some of the ginkgo leaves that Nobuko had brought. After some less than thrilling experiments I hit a groove and made a few that I was happy with.

A repetitive pattern of Nobuko's small gingko leaves.

Experimenting with two colors of gouache on leaves from our front yard maple tree.

I believe that these leaves are from my neighbors Japanes maple tree.

Experimenting with multiple colors on some larger gingko leaves.

It felt good to be around some like-minded, creative and decent people. 

Saint-Ex

 

This past Saturday I wrapped up a three week Japanese woodblock workshop with Yobuko Yamasaki, which was a lot of fun. Good instructor, good classmates. 

My subject this time around was the French aviation pioneer Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I've been immersed in his world for the past few months, reading his bio and a couple of his own works of fiction that were based on his adventures. In this workshop, we were able to do two colors, so that meant two separate pieces of wood to carve. However, when I did my initial design, I had three colors in mind. So, when the time came to print, I needed to make some choices. I think that it came out ok. I'll go into more of the process in one of my next Substack posts. 

Hammerhead Woodblock Print

 

10x13

print w/sumi ink

A couple of weeks ago, I finished up a three week course in Japanese Woodblock Engraving with instructor Nobuko Yamasaki. This here print above is my inaugural woodblock print. A hammerhead (of course!) for this week's open-themed #SundayFishSketch.

Mummy Print

 

For this Friday the 13th, I give you a mummy print that I did this past week. I have been taking a four week linoleum cutting class that is based on Halloween designs, so I did this guy. As you can see in the lower right near the mummy's mouth there is an imperfection in the printing process. It's called a 'monk' and all it means is that there was some piece of debris on the linoleum block when I was inking this up. 

Prints For Sale

 

For the past few weeks I have been uploading various prints that I have for sale onto my website store. Usually, I sell them at comic cons and such, but have switched my focus to selling more books. But, I still have various amounts of each one (some have sold out) and they are now available on my website for those who are interested in such things. I still have a few more to add. You can check them out here.

The above image is one that I did before settling into more of a pop culture vein, but one that I am still happy with, nonetheless. 

Creatures For A Cure Prints

I currently have a few of the Creatures For A Cure prints available for purchase on my website. They are $15, plus shipping and they are numbered, as shown in the pic above. You can click here to purchase one.

If you'd like to purchase signed prints to support the CF Foundation for $75 you can go to Asylum Publications, Inc and proceeds will go to that charity. Please do so, if you can.

Creatures For A Cure Art Print

 (click on image to make biggish)

About a year and a half ago I contributed a creature (the Gamera looking turtle) for this art jam piece for a worthy cause. This drawing made its way around the midwest and took just about all of that year and a half to complete. I was the third contributor so it has traveled a lot since then! 

Prints can be ordered from Asylum Publications and this was all put together by Paul Burke. Proceeds will go toward youth Cystic Fibrosis. You can get the details here.

The contributing artists for this piece are as follows alphabetically:

Steve Bejma    Mark Bloodworth    Seth Damoose    Dan Dougherty    Don England

Dedd Fredd    Bruce Gerlach    Arvell Jones    Vince Locke    Jamie Madrox    

John Marroquin    Tony Miello    Jason Moore   Marianna Pescosta

Nate Pride    Bill Pulkovski    Steve Sharar    BK Taylor    

Joshua Werner    Michael Woolsy

Wizard World Chicago

Tomorrow through Sunday you can find me in Rosemont at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center for the Wizard World Chicago show. I will be in Artist Alley at table B5, right next to Action Joe Corroney. Besides the brand new King Kong print (which you can see the black and white version above), I will have the latest Stoopid Stuf book, other prints, official sketch cards, all the books that I have work in and will be doing commissions, as well. So, come on by and say hello!

King Kong Print

I will have a new print debuting this weekend at the Wizard World Chicago show in Rosemont, IL. I took a different approach with this one, using watercolor and ink instead of acrylic washes. Also, I intentionally made the perspective on the wings a bit wonky to try and create a little more dynamism and to give the impression that all is open on this side, but closed on the other. I'm not sure that I nailed it, but I think it works. The one small thing that I get a little giddy about is the spot where the gunner is looking back at Kong. I think I created a good sense of depth there. A very happy accident.

Poe Print

Yesterday I posted that I would be in Madison, WI for the Wizard World Comic Con and that I would be doing a panel with Bill Pulkovski about the influence of Edgar Allan Poe on art and film. Along with copies of the Portraits of Poe book that I did, I will also have new prints of the Poe illustration done for the book, but in it's original color.