I must admit that I'm not very good at withstanding suspense.  When I read a book, I read the first pages and then the ending.  Then, I can relax and read the middle part.  I enjoy finding out how the ending is arrived at.  I'm no good with suspenseful movies unless someone has "spoiled" the ending for me.  Yup, I'm a total wimp.  This is a quick sketch in my art journal of my daughter, who can stand suspense in her books.  I like to use up paint from my palette by scraping it on blank pages and then I come back later and draw over them and lastly add random words I have found in magazines.  This technique makes for some wonderfully strange pages!  

Lately I've been working on a series of linocut prints of small towns.  "Working" is probably not the right term.  "Obsessing" is probably more correct.  There are sixteen of these little compilations and they are all different!  I have been happily lost in decisions about which paper, with which colours, with which buildings...and so on.  I've finally gotten them all more or less done and I realized that now they all have to be photographed and listed in my shop.  This reminds me of the question, "How do you eat an elephant?"  Of course, I would never eat an elephant!  But the answer is: One bite at a time.  So I will be introducing them to my shop one at a time and I'll show some of them here too: )
Next week I'm going to tear myself away from the linocuts for a little while because I have some new panels on which to do some mixed media painting.  Yay!

My art journal is a place where I consciously try to not be conscious.  By that I mean that I don't plan or think about how things are going to look.  I scrape in whatever paint colors are left on my palette and glue in what is left over on my table and write in quotes that appeal to me or words I have cut out of books.  It never ceases to amaze me how it all comes together.  I think our brains are hard-wired to try and make sense of things and when things are random it is fun for us to find the sense, the patterns and the meaning.  We like it better when things aren't too obvious.

Here's my new and improved Red Bird linocut.  Two posts back, I wrote about how dissatisfied I was with this print.  I've lightened the blue and taken out the extraneous branch and the leaves and added flowers.  I also figured out a way to deal with the edges using a method I call "towel edge".  I'm sure others have used towels before me but it's fun to think of it as my own invention.
It is now on display in my Etsy shop and in a white frame on my wall : )

A few nights ago I had a dream that I was on one of these carnival rides that take you up in the air and twirl you around.  The trouble was the ride wouldn't work and we couldn't get off the ground so we were running along the ground as the ride turned slowly.  I won't try and interpret this for you.   I just love the image and it gave me the idea for this little twirling ACEO.
I love dreams.  I get such great ideas from them!

Here's a little peek at the lino print that I'm working on.  It's not done yet.  In fact I'm not happy with the result at all.  I managed to commit my two most common mistakes, so I thought I would blog about in the hopes that I may remember not to  repeat them! One: I need to pay attention to what I'm doing!  I tend to motor away while my mind goes off  on vacation.  This is does not make for good art!  Here the blue is too bright, the gold under the bird didn't work and the edges look crooked.  I also failed to notice that there is not much contrast.    This has got to be my second favourite mistake.  All of this caused me to look at these prints, after I'd make ten, and go UG!  Back to the drawing board!   However, I did create a wonderful new dish! New for me that is.  Caramelized Lotus root.  It is a little sweet because of the brown sugar and crunchy, with the consistency of a water-chestnut.  MMMMM    I have used lotus roots as stamps before, but now I know how to cook them!

As soon as I read the word for Illustration Friday this week, I thought about knolling. I first heard about Knolling from my daughter this Christmas.  She was doing some bookbinding and "knolling" was the best way to "prepare".  What is knolling? Just what this video by Tom Sachs!

I was getting ready to do some lino printing so I carefully knolled my table.  It's now so beautifully organized and a sharp contrast to my other art table which is what you see if you turn around in my tiny studio.

I feel a little guilty that these illustrations are made digitally with my phone of all things!  However, next week I will hopefully have some lovely linocut prints to show.  Made at my knolled table...and I better get knolling the other table!

My art journal is a place where I use up the last bits of paint from my palette,  glue odds and ends that I like but  can't seem to work into a collage and write quotes and various pieces of advice to myself.  It definitely is what keeps me grounded because it reminds my of what my real voice is and what I am striving to be.  Why is it, that it's so much harder to be myself on a new blank canvas?
One of my New Years resolutions is to blog more and share more journal pages: )
Also to cook more from this marvelous cookbook:

And share it here...and of course, I'll carry on writing about the art that I'm making. I'm hoping for a fun year of creating, blogging and eating! Hope you have a fun year too.

I don't actually send Christmas cards, but I make them for other people.  Here's this years batch all laid out and drying on the bed.  I made 4 different linocut stamps for these and spent a ridiculous amount of time deciding what colour of green the trees should be. I still have to give all the little red elf/gnomes their faces. I was totally absorbed in my little Christmas print world here, when I looked out the window and we were getting our first dusting of snow.  How Christmasy!

Here's the view from my studio and here's one of my finished cards.
Happy Holidays!