Annie linocut on Japanese Kozo

Each time I make a dog portrait I try something different. It may be in the size of the block, a profile vs. full body, changes of paper or changes of color. Each one is very personal. I began “Annie” last week. Annie, one of the sweetest dogs I have had the pleasure of meeting, passed away a couple of months ago. After looking through a number of photos of her, I kept melting in her  side looking gaze.

There were a couple of things I knew I wanted. First, I wanted to show the pink and blue blanket, though there was only a sliver of it. Two, I wanted to have a separation between her brown and black. The only way I knew I could that is in a reduction linoleum block. This block got carved and printed 4 times over, pink, blue, brown, then black. Once all four layers were printed, I printed what remained of the block, which was quite a bit, onto 300 pound buff Rives BFK paper. In total I have 18 prints. Some were thrown away for begin off register, too dark or too light. I finished with an assortment 4 color prints on very thin Japanese paper, type types of Japanese paper.

I am beat. It was a super busy week. Spring is here and I had fences to mend, a race to run, orders to fill, grants to submit and groceries to buy. For those of you in the know, grocery shopping involves a 100 mile round trip, so it is time-consuming. But these are complaints, on the contrary, I am so lucky that I am able to do so much and have so much fun.  As I await the cinch bags to come in, I am starting on a 22″ x 30″ linocut. I will shoot a photo of the daily carving process. In the meantime, there are 64 items in my Etsy store, so check it out!