outside at last

I opened up the outside shed this week, finally ran some power from the house through the wire we buried three years ago, and viola - Trout Lily Studios is officially inhabiting it's new (non-winter) digs.

But since it's not to warm out yet, and I need to keep ink sort of liquid (until of course when it's hopefully pressed into it's proper spot on a new print and supposed to be drying...) I need to keep things warm out there.

Nothing better than this mother right here:

Once it's get's going, it takes about ten minutes to make thing nice and roasty toasty.

It's still pretty rustic out there - it's far from rodent proof, so I don't store anything out there, and of course I don't keep anything I don't want to freeze out there, and instead haul stuff back and forth as I need it. But the light is fabulous, and even with the extra bee hives and such stacked about, there's loads of elbow room.



I'm midway through a quick little reduction woodcut of a fly fisherman casting on the Willow River, back when there were three dams. This image was taken in the shadowy half-light right below the upper most dam above Burkqhart. There used to be a ton of brookies that like to hang out were the water seeped around the dam.

Folks ask me if I mix my own colors. Why yes, yes I do mix my own colors. I have four cans of ink - white, black, red, yellow and blue. All my colors are mixed from these.
It's takes time and practice and lots of wasted supplies figuring each manufacturers inks out, and how they will work for you. I'm finally getting a handle on Daniel Smiths colors - I wanted a nice "springy" green to pop through the grays and browns that will eventually dominate this print.



Yellow straight out of the can, printed lightly over the green for the looping flyline:



And if I do say so myself, tonight I mixed the prefect flesh tone (300 prts White, 1 prt Yellow, 1 prt red, .05 prts blue...):



there's a fisherman emerging from the print - can you see him?

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.

Finished

... and with the black block printed, this print is finished!



I'm pretty pleased with this one. It was a complex image, but pretty simple print - it has only 5 colors. I really like the way the Daniel Smith inks finished off on the Rives; a very different feel from previous work. I'll definitely be doing more.