2011 Calendar Off and Running

I finished up the carving today of the first of our Calendar prints for next year. I went so far as to run a few proofs on my bottle jack press.



For those not familiar with these, Deborah does the drawings, based on her year-round work at Maple Leaf Orchard, and I take the drawings and print them (along with all my woodcuts) She then takes them back and hand colors them. Finally, we pick out the best ones and electronically layout a calendar and have it commercially printed.

I forgot to put a border on this one; otherwise, we're liking it a lot. The night sky will be dark blue with the moons glow, and we're debating on what to do with the fore-ground. Our original idea was shadows of trees on snow at night, but leaving it black is a possibility, too.

We took delivery today of the first printing of Calenders;
the 2011 'Year at the Orchard' Calender can now

be purchased at the Trout Lily Studios Website.

Get them while they're hot!

September, October and November

Deb finished up coloring September, October and November this week.



September apple picking crew



October Songbirds



November woodcutting

January, March and August

Three more prints for the calendar project:

January: skiing by the light of a full moon



March is maple syrup season:



Grapes start to ripen in August:

May

Deb finished adding color to a couple prints of the May block today. We were both wondering how the Akua Kolor was going to work on the Revere paper, as a friend had had trouble getting satisfying results with other water color on it. But the Akua Kolor works great:



One of the finished prints:



11 more to go! So far, we've got 12 final drawings, 7 blocks cut and proofed, 3 blocks final printed, and one block printed and colored. Cutting the final 5 blocks will take the most time, but I'm confident we can get this to press before our September deadline.

New Project: Orchard Calendar

Deb and I have been kicking this project around for about a year now. A calendar depicting the people, plants, animals and seasons of an orchard; we want it to show what is rarely seen by the public back at the shop or at the farmers market, but what is integral to the life of the place.

I at first figured I would produce the whole thing myself with woodcuts, but as projects piled up, it became obvious that it wasn't going to get done. And since Deb was the one closest to an actual orchard (being she works at Maple Leaf Orchard), she decided to jump in and get things started by presenting me with a set of thumbnail drawings.

So it was decided: Deb would do the drawings, I would transfer them to blocks and print them, and then Deb would take over and paint in the colors with water colors. Since we are working under a self imposed deadline of September 1st, I decided the quickest way to carve/print a dozen blocks would be to produce them on linoleum blocks.

A week later, 10 drawings are done, a stack of lino blocks is ready, and two proofs have been printed:



January cross-country skiing by moonlight



May apple blossoms pollinated by the orchard honey bees.