Nurse Dogs

At first glance,
one sees the classic "Man's Best Friend" thing...
how touching...
their owner, miserable with a cold....
they stay by her side...
ALL DAY,
to encourage and support her
through this time of Disgust.

But, look again.

True, they've been with her constantly..
but, not because of that
Dog Loyality crap. . . . . .

No.

It's all because of kleenex!
Thats what they love.
A fresh box for them is
nothing more than a PEZ dispenser.

From the first nose blow
in the morning,
these tissue eating cur
stay glued to their infected owner
all day.....
waiting..........
for the only thing BETTER
than fresh kleenex.

The Yellow Dog

Six years ago
after doing a new logo for the
Iowa County Humane Society in Dodgeville, Wisconsin...












I was so fired up,
I dug out a very weak monoprint
saved from my "yellow dog" series...
(I don't throw much out...
I don't see things as failures...
only beginnings for something else)
and produced a fine, newly painted Yellow Dog.
I scanned him when he was dry...
and then took him in to the gallery where their first auction was to be held
to see if he would be an acceptable donation.

I don't know if I simply lost him...
or he was stolen.
He never made it to the auction.
The only proof of his existence were the glowing pixals on my monitor.

This year I mastered the Epson printer...
and using CavePaint, some beautiful archival paper,
and my new printing abilities
finally released the YellowDog from his dark, digital quarters
in time to be at this year's Humane Society auction.



















The YellowDog brought a bid of $218.00.

Small Dog of Power

That's him...
He was my effort towards the BarenForum
Chinese Year of the Dog print exchange.
The first major effort on my own with Moku Hanga....
I needed some mild mannered beast to print..
considering I may be printing hundreds of them
in order to get the 60 some I needed...
so, I selected this mild tempered/mannered fellow
which I felt I could look at for the duration
and not risk either eyeball damage or boredom.

I DID manage to discover that there is one volume of Murphy's Laws
which addresses Japanese printmaking specifically...
and I've managed to follow
and then successfully break every one of them
with the help of this fine beast...
which is, actually, part of his job AS animal of the year.

I printed in batches...
and each batch was a bit different than the one before.
I couldn't help myself...
I had to keep trying something different
but I did achieve consistancy within each batch.
I guess I should call them "editions".
I'm still learning.
I had a ball.
It took way longer to get those 60 prints than I expected...
but, I wonder how much of that time was spent
following all those "laws".

I'm not done with this one though.
Fine tuning, tailoring and experiments with flaming glue are in his future!

My knives are calling...
more later.

Bridge work

I'm almost done drawing this
up on blocks that I'll eventually print....






I'm into the last block.
I SO under estimated what I was in for.

Of course,
it would probably help matters greatly
if I could stop making small changes
along the way....
but, noooo....
I latched onto this printmaking method way late
so, I'm packed with too many
"what if"s and "how about"s
to keep things simple and easy....
besides, I'm a sucker for a challenge like this.

arting

I've got some arting at http://www.absolutearts.com/kelen
too much really.
I post to show someone...
and there is stays.

They selected one piece to be featured for 24 hours
starting at midnight tonight...
which means thousands of viewings.

So, I added a new piece.....








reordered them...
posted a link to SardineQueen.

My bad back sure threw me off.
Last summer, I was going strong...
and wham....
I went from strong and powerful
to delicate and breakable overnight.

I've got a kind of arting rhythm going again...
I'm seeing a variety of projects at various stages of completion...
more starting up...
it's starting to feel good again.

I'm getting quite involved with these woodcuts.
Two more nearly ready to start cutting...

and then it will be time
to dive back into my
"garden of eden" work.......















but, in the mean time
I was paying attention to where our fearless leaders are taking us...
and needing to take me someplace else...
got to doing some monoprinting...












there are 15 more.

"Captain" of us

There are so many
much better than I
at assembling words
about what's going on...

Enough Sardines.

I'm a bit tired of them at this point.
Well, I was working on them...
and they were right there in front of me.
Somehow it's fitting
they should be at the bottom
sinking lower
buried in posts.

I had to take a break from drawing up new blocks to cut....
and, in trying to find something else to work on
ran into and got to working on the "wedding procession"....