H is for...

In one of life's amusing little coincidences, I'm working on this linocut block...

...and I'm reading this book.

Let it snow...

I've had the block printing bug again lately, and everything seems to be Christmas-themed. I'll be posting about all of them, but first up is this little snow globe.

There are snow globes of all kinds and price ranges, but I love the little vintage "dimestore" plastic ones.

I drew this one as a tiny 2.5" sketch one day, and couldn't get it out of my head, and it became this 3-color print, starting with this larger sketch to set up the registration marks for the different colored blocks.

I ended up re-carving the red block after a flaw showed up in the printing (as you can see in some of the prints above. ) So, several runs later, I had a number of acceptable ones. But with the amazing accuracy of today's scanners and printers, I can now use the image on cards and other prints, and it is hard to tell the original (bottom) from the inkjet (top):

Here is the progression of the printing...I love seeing the layers build upon one another:

...let it snow!

(Well, here in Northern California, we'd be happy with some rain!)

It's persimmon season...

Fuyu Persimmons, 8" x 10"Prismacolor colored pencil on Stonehenge paper

Persimmons are starting to appear at the market! These tomato-shaped Fuyu persimmons are available now, which means the bigger, cone-shaped Hachiyas will be here soon. I found the leaves, or sepals, quite interesting because they appear in arrangements of four, which seems a bit unusual in the fruit world. I've written before about the star shapes and multiples of five that are found in so many fruits and vegetables, but these are definitely a symmetrical, cross-shaped arrangement of four. 

When I draw shiny fruits and vegetables, it's easy for me to overwork the burnishing, so I deliberately held back a bit on these. I wanted to capture some of the frosty "bloom" that appears on the skins, which was quite a challenge; it'd have been easier to have polished them up before I drew them!

Here are some WIP shots; I hope to have some Hachiya persimmons as models before too long!

Shiitake mushrooms

Prismacolor colored pencil on Stonehenge Kraft, 5" x 7"

I have such a great time drawing different types of mushrooms on the fabulous Stonehenge Kraft paper. Click on the "mushrooms" label below to see some others.Follow my blog with Bloglovin