Want to see my dewlap?

Green Anole
2012 Moku Hanga woodcut print
5" x 7"
printed from 6 blocks

We used to wrongly call these lizards, "Florida Chameleons" because the green ones can also turn completely brown--a feature they use for camouflage among the green leaves and brown branches. They are not true chameleons but anoles and are distinguished by their colored dewlap, the extendable flap of skin under the chin. This is the only anole native to Florida although they have been pushed aside by the invasive and more aggressive brown and cuban anoles too. In the suburbs of Miami where I grew up this was NATURE and the closest we could get in our backyards to the wild we'd read about in the nature magazines that would come in the mail.
Many hours were spent trying to catch them and if you handled them too roughly they could bite--a small and harmless but painful pinch. They could also shed their tails and the shortened lizard would scurry away leaving the long green tail, red meaty stub and all, writhing away on the ground like a small snake. The dewlap can be bright red or orange or white, depending on the subspecies.
The male will post himself in some visible location and bob up and down with the brightly colored flap of skin under his neck fanning out to catch the attention to warn away other males or hopefully catch the eye of some svelte green female.
I always liked the habits of this shy small lizard caught between the conflicting urges to be discreet and invisible yet driven to set himself up on some sunlit prominent twig and puff up declaring to all, "HEY, look at ME, Look at ME!"

This was my contribution to the Baren 2012 YEAR of the Dragon print exchange.
It was fun to cut and print and was one of the few prints I've done that printed well on both Japanese and European papers. This one is on Magniani incisioni, an Italian medium-weight etching paper.

Lizard color proofs

I managed to print a few more color proofs of my lizard print.
The red and yellow blocks are indeed a bit out of register; but as there is a bit of play to the color blocks--I have several overlaps--by just moving them over a smidgeon (about 2mm) to the side and 1mm up on one corner they fill in pretty decently and I think I'll have a go at a proper print run this week if I can carve out some time instead of recarving the blocks.

The lizard is too blue-green (it is a really vibrant yellow-green in real life) and I need to distinguish the lizard from the background a bit more (there are separate blocks for this so it should be easy).

Still a small amount of clean up to do though. Some stray edges,unwanted embossing, spotting, low spots and filled-in gaps to tidy up with the chisels before printing the first batch.
The pebbly skin was lost a bit from overprinting; I'll try to open up the holes a bit more and print it last to give the skin visible and raised texture. As it is now a bit too subtle.

Lizard Skin

Two quick shots of the proofs of yesterday's block.

The block prints pretty well; I used just a bit of Payne's Gray and Pthalo blue and paste to test the holes.
Registration was on for this block and the keyblock.

No more shots of this print for a while:
Two of my color blocks are off-register by about 1/8th of an inch.
Too much to be just cutting error on a small print and I was VERY meticulous to cut all the Kentos exactly the same. I think wood expansion is the culprit as I pasted two of the hanshitas down two weeks later than the first two.
I'll try to adjust the kentos and trim first but I may have to recarve two blocks.

This looks pretty good like this but it's pretty far from the intended print.
This texture would be more appropriate for a Gila monster or Beaded lizard and less so for the small, green anole I have in mind.
I'll have to see if the other blocks can be salvaged and suspect/hope the final work will be quite different.