Mosquito paralysis

My first clumsy engravings were really carved almost without thinking.  I didn't really consider what I was doing. I had a block, and a couple of tools so I just cut them and printed the resulting image without giving any thought to how I was working or the still unknown ways of working in wood engraving.

After finishing my last simple Puppet engraving, I finally picked up a copy of Simon Brett's book,"Wood Engraving How to do it",  that I had purchased some time ago.   I must admit that going through it has sort of stopped me in my tracks.
There is a great deal of useful information and illustrations: this section on how to make a "sampler" of the tools and the different ways to consider letters is really helpful.

Illustration from Brett's book on engraving showing lettering styles.

But further on,  he discusses and illustrates the varying ways one can approach an image and this other series, illustrated to show multiple examples of the same image, engraved in differing ways has stopped me completely.  There are just too many choices--

Illustrations from S. Brett's Book on Engraving.

There are more examples--many more as this image gets resolved in many different ways and styles.
Many aren't suited to my work or habit but in theory, I should be pulling from these as needed when solving issues of tone and depth require differing techniques.

So I'm back to the block thinking: now what?
I've done enough trials on scrap wood that I'd like to try a piece of real boxwood and see what the smoother cutting and fine grain will allow.  I have a small off-cut of European Boxwood that I've been saving for a small work and I have an on-again, off-again series of parasites and small insects that I wanted to add to and I have many small mosquito thumbnails that I've drawn over the last weeks and from which I managed to cobble together an image I'm happy with.
The above photo shows my prepared drawing applied to the surface of my block. The block is just 2.5" in diameter so the image is pretty small.  So now I'm ready to go but I've been hesitating. Thinking for example of how to resolve the "tiger" aspect of the alternating black and white bands of the insect legs.
 And in this case, my small frail insect on a round of box can be resolved in lots of ways.....most of which I had never even considered until now.  The biggest decisions--whether to carve the insect as a white drawing lifted out of the black ground or to engrave around my drawing--preserving the drawing itself by cutting everything else away which is a bit more natural for me coming from my moku hanga experience.

The good news however is that while I've been procrastinating, mulling over in my mind what I think I'd like to do, I've been sharpening my tools. Slowly I've been selecting the gravers I'm likely to use, and they've been cleaned and sharpened and honed and then honed again and so are actually ready to cut.

Meanwhile, as I stare at the block, I have to keep the fan on as the mosquitoes are honing in on my exhaled CO2 and my bare ankles and calves under the table while I sit, inactive, thinking about the first cut.

Oats

It's fast becoming Summer and the grass is growing faster than I can even think about cutting it.
In the fields are witchgrass, rye, wheat, and many others but the showiest in mid-May are the individual plants or stands or fields of oats (avena sativa).

 I've enjoyed listening to the birds and watching the young immature flowers/seeds swing and dangle in the breeze--akin to watching the flickering of a fire or the lapping of the waves. Rhythmic and predictable; so barely but infinitely variable.

I've been cutting them and bringing them in and I have carafes and jam jars, water glasses and vases full of stems and stalks.
Green dangling jewels like earrings or bangles or dry, spiny, bearded, spring-loaded seed heads or the flags they leave behind--"we're off, we're off" for the wind to rustle.

 Here are a few oat-inspired etagami.
The Japanese reads, "they invented dance"--my way of acknowledging the seeming joyful swaying and and almost synchronous ballet of fields of little green ballerinas.
Above, instead is a drypoint print--the sprig of green, immature oats drawn and then incised with a sharp point onto a flattened, recycled, Tetrapak container, and printed with a small press.

Signs

I signed up for this print exchange on a whim.
I liked the idea of their sketch book project and the idea of a kind of traveling library with artists' sketchbooks on display all over the country and I was intrigued by their offering of their second
Printmakers exchange. (www.sketchbookproject.com/projects)
The idea is similar.
500 Printmakers will each create an edition of 12 prints. One will go in their archives, one will be displayed in their Brooklyn Art Library in New York and the other 10 will be randomly distributed back to participating artists. The entry fee was a little steep ($50.00) and I was going to pass but it was the theme that convinced me to participate.
This year's theme is:  "Waiting for a Sign"--- not that that is so uncontrollably appealing it's just that I had done this sketch about 4-5 months ago:

I don't know if it's legible but the scrawled writing at the bottom reads, "waiting for some kind of sign..."
I had imagined some kind of figure on a bench reading in the foreground with this happening behind and the reader oblivious to all.   I liked the nervous sky and silly clouds and the Biblical-scale arrow coming down from the heavens. 

I took this strange coincidence as an omen that I should participate, but I decided in the end NOT to do this particular print for this exchange....mostly because I'd like to do it later and because I had envisioned this bigger and I wanted to play a bit with the printing......

So I went back to my idea file and pulled out another sketch which I've worked up and gotten as far as printed up and glued down ready for carving. It's perhaps not as exciting but it's part of a series I'm working on and at this 5"x7" scale will be a kind of trial or test print.


It also includes an arrow, a lot of blue, a wall and a sky and even a subtle, spiritual nod.  Stay tuned. Carving starts tomorrow.