Onion Watercolor

 

I used to spend some time drawing and painting on my grandfather's farm in Floyd.  This was a study that I did of some onions on the barn floor.  Watercolor is a tricky medium--you quickly learn that it wants to do it's own thing, so painting becomes something akin to herding cats.

 

Bodhran Linocut

 

Here's one more linocut.  This one depicts a bodhran, an Irish drum.  I bought one of these drums for myself when Jessie and I were in Ireland on our honeymoon.  I got it from a lady who's been making them for years, and mine is a special bass bodhran.  It's smaller and deeper, and the goat skin head has been dyed black...it's a real man's drum.

 

Winter's Call: Another Linocut

 

This print was a Christmas present from several years ago.  I made them for friends and family (some of you might have one).  It's another linocut, but this time I added a watercolor wash...for a more personal touch.  I've always been drawn to crows and ravens for some reason...I'm obviously not a farmer.

 

Thank-You Print

 

Back in 2003, Jessie threw a surprise birthday party for me.  She had been planning it for over a year and had invited tons of people that I have known from all corners of my life.  The best part of it was that she was sending us on a trip to Montana to retrace some of the Lewis and Clark journey (I'm a huge Lewis and Clark buff).  One of the the highlights of the trip was spending two nights in a tee pee on the Montana plains.

This print was an idea that I had for a "thank you" card to send to the guests.  It's a test print, so the quality isn't all that great--but you get the picture.

Hand Print

 

This is the process for another linocut.  I've shown the beginning concept in pencil, then the test print in black ink, and finally the finished print which is actually two-color.  The red background had to be printed first and then, being careful to keep proper registration, the black was printed.  

  

  

The above is an example of a bad print.  You can see how the black is spotty and not very uniform.  I think I got it better in the final.

  

 

Sometime, I'd love to start printing some Thistledown material with my letterpress.  It's all a matter of getting the time to do it.....sigh.

Linocuts: Coffee and Tea

 

These are some of my first linoleum block prints, otherwise known as linocuts.  They are from a coffee and tea series that I did several years ago.  I've always had a fascination with coffee (I usually prefer it to tea)...not just drinking it, but the whole art of brewing and enjoying it. 

  

I cranked out tons of these things in both black and brown.  I really love linocuts because you have to distill an object down to it's essential elements.  Then you have to be very careful when carving not to screw up the whole thing! 

 

I've done lots of these things, so I'll be sure to put more of them up later.

Pub Painting

 

This is the actual Irish pub painting.  Notice it's triangular shape.  I was intending to do another triangular painting of an Irish landscape to go on top of this one, but alas....time got away.  It's painted in acrylic on birch plywood that was primed with gesso.  I like the warm cozy feel it has...just like sitting by a warm fire on a chilly Irish evening listening to great music.  Maybe someday I'll get around to actually hanging it somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

Pub Sketch

I've travelled to Ireland twice in my life.  Once right after I graduated from college, and the second time was my honeymoon.  I love traditional Irish music--it's so lively and...well just full of life.  It's also best heard live.  There's just nothing like hearing an impromptu gathering of musicians in a little pub up on a side street in Dingle town--especially after a full day of hiking the Irish coast. 

This sketch was an attempt several years ago to capture something of that feeling--from memory.  It's the precursor to a painting that I did on wood and was supposed to be one part of a triangular diptych...but I never got around to the second part.

I'll show the painting later...

Tolkien Pictures: Part Three

This is actually the first image I came up with for The Hobbit, but it's my least favorite, so I threw it in last.  While I love the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, I am a little bit sad that when I now go to read the book, I have pictures of Elijah Wood and Sean Astin in my head. 

A real pity--and don't get me wrong, I love watching movies, but I actually enjoy reading much more.  Reading forces your mind to be active, and with beautifully descriptive books like The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, it's so much fun to imagine what Middle Earth and all of it's inhabitants look like.  To then have someone else's concept suddenly become visual canon can feel slightly barbaric.  Sigh...

By the way, for some reason, I've always loved the passages where Bilbo and company smoke their pipes.  Blowing smoke rings is truly an art form in itself.

Tolkien Pictures: Part Two

This was the illustration that I came up with for The Hobbit.  I liked the idea of a bunch of dwarves up in a tree.  This particular image was done in pen and ink with a watercolor wash.

 

I really had fun with all of that intricate bark texture...

Tolkien Pictures: Part One

Like a lot of folks I know, I'm completely enamored with J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.  I also really like The Hobbit, and as I read through it about seven years ago, I came up with a few illustrations.  This is the first and it depicts the scene when Thorin and company talk to the old raven.  It's pen and ink--one of my favorite mediums.

Here's a close-up of the scraggly old bird.

Why This New Blog?

The idea for this new blog has really been with me for a long time now, but I just never got around to creating it.  Most of my time is spent working at what I love most, which is building and performing puppets for Thistledown Puppets, but before I ever started Thistledown, I was always drawing, painting, or doodling...for years, actually.  And really, the cumulative hours of drawing, studying,...and seeing...has shaped both who I am and the work that I now do.

The bottom line is that I have lots of portfolios, sketchbooks, and nooks and crannies filled with images that nobody ever gets to see (which in some cases is probably for the best).  But I thought--hey, why not at least have a place where anyone who is even slightly interested can see some of that old work that I so lovingly labored upon?  And what's up with the name, you might ask?  Well one of my favorite dead guys, George MacDonald, once said that art should wake meaning in us, or at least wake interest.  My life has been devoted to having meaning awakened inside of me and in my work.

So here you go.  This is a place to show you some of my work and how I tend to see the world.  And it might get hijacked from time to time to share family photos and discuss my personal life a bit...but as Bobby Brown was fond of saying, "it's my prerogative".