New box for Calypso

After playing with the Stonehenge boxes, I decided I liked the deckled edge on the front flap, so decided to do a slightly different box design than I originally intended. Printed the title on the side, and added the paint smudges on the cover, to echo the smudges in the book. Finished 10 boxes, then ran out of the gray ribbons. I had hoped to finish all the boxes this weekend, but looks like it won't happen, as I'm helping taking down the PAN show tomorrow (how time flies, a month has gone by).

Boxes & crepes

Gretchin sent along a pointer to her blog of her gocco chocolate sauce experiment, and I'm very envious -- it's a huge success. My experiment with the chocolate sauce on the wonton skin flopped. Read her success story here, and about my flop here and here (so you know what not to do).

Picked up enough Stonehenge Gray to make 21 boxes for Calypso, and was able to make 13, 14 boxes this afternoon. Hope to finish them tomorrow, gocco the title on the spines, and glue everything down. Then I'd be ready to ship off 1 book to the Focus on Books exhibit, one for the Sense and Sensuality show, and the boxes to the exchange recipients who had already gotten the bum boxes.

Wrapping up loose ends

Put issue #21 of Pudding in the mail today, then came home to finish Calypso -- finished sanding all the back plexi covers and roughened the last pages. Discovered that the boxes I had already made have already faded, having sat by the window for the last week or so, and we've been getting a bit of sunshine. I wondered about using poster board for the boxes, and so now I know. I'll need to remake all the boxes, including those that I've already sent off on the exchanges. I made one this afternoon with the Stonehenge Gray, and that seems to be a good weight, so I'll stick with that. I guess that's my weekend project, along with updating the web site, and de-installing the book show at PAN.

Put together a CD with a few images that Lee asked for, for the Maryhill museum exhibit. Went to the USPS web site to figure my postage for the CD, and discovered that they're having a 'vote for your favorite star wars stamp' thing going on. Naturally, I voted for Han Solo. Hey, you can even vote once a day, if you so desire. Click www.usps.com to cast your vote.

I noticed today that I missed a few dandelions, so I'll take care of those tomorrow. I'll need to save a few of the leaves, for my next painting project.

Easy pickin' when they're bloomin'

Spent the afternoon digging up dandelions. They're easy to spot when they're blooming, and it's wet enough that those tap roots come up pretty easily. I filled up half of my 3'x3'x4' compost bin. That's a lot of dandelions. I shouldn't put the flowers in the compost, since my composts never seem to get hot enough to kill the seeds (and even when pulled out of the ground, some of those flowers will still develop into seed heads). But I just couldn't dump all those green leaves into yard debris can (not to mention that the can is all full of branches anyhow).

I'm wrapping up my Pudding Notes for issue #21, and they'll go into the mail tomorrow, along with the exchange books for Lisa.

Disappointing results

I tried the Van Gogh + pigment + baby oil again today, on a separate print run all by itself. I had high hopes that it would work out great, and it did, for about 3 prints. Then the screen started to clog up, and by the 20th print, all I was getting was a halo. I scraped the ink off, cleaned the screen, reinked. Then I got 3 more good prints, followed by halos only.

Each time I scraped off the ink and cleaned the screen, I got 3 more good prints. This was obviously not working as I anticipated. What might've gone wrong --

1) That I mixed the dry pigment with the white ink, and the powder may not have been fine enough to go through the screen(seems likely)?
2) Somehow using the baby oil made the ink dry faster (I don't think so).
3) Something else all together?

The next thing to do is to try the straight Van Gogh and see how it does.

The movie tonight was The Namesake. It was just ok. Other than Mississippi Masala and Salaam Bombay, I really haven't particularly cared for Mira Nair's movies all that much, those that I've seen (Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair, and now The Namesake).

Oils, acrylics, eye shadows, oh my!

Got started working on Pudding issue 21 today.

I decided to have a little fun with this issue. People are always asking about alternative inks and such, so here I'm trying a few different things. There are 6 rows of graphics+text, and from the top:

- Van Gogh oil paint mixed with dry pigment
- Same as above, but with baby oil mixed in
- Golden acrylic paint, straight from the tube
- Same as above, but with retardant mixed in
- Gocco white ink mixed with purple eye shadow
- Same as above, but with baby oil mixed in

The acrylic made a giant mess, of course. It's very runny, and dries pretty quickly, even in our current weather condition -- in the mid 40's and raining, and I had the windows open while I was printing. However, it did not dry as quickly as I figured, even the straight acrylic.

Mostly, the 2 biggest problems:

1) I kept on running out of the acrylic and would have to refill.
2) Because the acrylic is so loose and the oils so stiff, they really require different pressures and hold times to print well, but since I've got them on the same screen, they're all printed with the same minimum amount of pressure and hold time to accommodate the acrylic.

In this test, the Van Gogh oil paint did not print very well, but I suspect that it will do much better given the right pressure and hold time. The gocco ink + eye shadow + baby oil printed very well, except when I started to run out of the ink mixture.

Below, the one on the left was the 3rd print; the right was about the 40th print.



And this, the one on the left was about the 90th print; the right was about the 140th.

Taxes, day II

...and a couple of pictures. I decided to have Calypso professionally photographed because of the reflective surface, and also how long the book is. I met with the photographer, Aaron Johanson, last Monday and got the CD's back last Wed, but only got around to looking at them today. Here are a couple of the pictures.

The cover is white ink printed over clear plexi. What you can read of the title is the shadow cast by the title printed in white. The plexi is attached to the textblock, which is BFK white, with gel medium.



The middle few pages of the accordion front. The large texts read Acquire/Acquiesce and Time/Tarnish.



Met with Andrew for coffee and catching up today, and got some really good feed back on both the apron project and the vanity project.

Wrapped up my part of the 2006 taxes...amazing, it's not even April yet.

Taxes

Need I say more? That took most of the day, although I did take a couple of hours to drop off my RACC entry material and do a bit of gallery walk in the afternoon.

A project idea

Spent a couple of days in Bend (went over yesterday and came home this evening). The potstickers were a big hit, at least with the care-giver, but I think my mom liked them as well. It's not always easy to tell, but she did eat a lot of them, so that was a good sign. She continues to sit in front of her pile of fabrics and talk about making aprons out of them, as she has done for months now. I don't think she'll ever get up enough spirit to actually make them, but just talking about the possibility seems to keep her occupied.

On my way back, I thought about making prints about the unmade aprons, the possibilities of making things, and why we get fixated about particular things, and then it occurred to me that I should take my gocco stuff over and she and I can make prints together! I think she would get a kick out of that.

Sewing (with a sewing machine) is really a solitary activity -- all the machine noise it would be hard to chitchat -- although I suppose cutting out the patterns can be done as a group activity. But gocco! That can definitely be done as a group/social activity. I would have to spend more than just a day or two over there, probably more like 3 or 4 days in order to plan and edition a print with her. She talked about perhaps writing down stories of her life, something that I doubt she would ever actually do, but I think the two of us can maybe make prints based on the stories of her life. I still need to think this through, but I'll call it the apron project for now. Not sure that I'd be able to have this and the vanity project going at the same time, and do the thangka thing with Suzy.

Spent the evening putting together the materials for the RACC Portable Works Purchase deadline. I hadn't kept up with reading the RACC newsletter and didn't find out about it until Rake called. Due tomorrow.

We are so fortunate

Met Roslyn for lunch today and found out she's about to have surgery. She's the umpteenth friend who's encountered serious enough of a health issue that requires something as drastic as this. And of course, Roxanne passed away last fall. We are seriously fortunate, having nothing really wrong with us that can't be taken care of with some care and exercise.

Picked up my CD's from Aaron this morning, but I haven't had a chance to look at the photos yet, maybe tomorrow morning before I head off to Bend.

Off to visit my mom for a couple of days. Went shopping for potstickers makings this afternoon so I can make some potstickers while I'm there. That should keep everyone entertained for the afternoon. And they'll have some dumpling/potstickers to keep in the freezer for a bit.

Spent most of the afternoon cleaning up about 2/3 of the branches from when I pruned the plum this last winter. I feel like there are 3001 projects and about 3000 of them are not going to get done! Maybe I'll get inspired to take a couple of snapshots this weekend.

A little of this and that

Cleaned up the last bits of the eye shadows scattered around; I'm keeping them though, for future projects. Besides, people are still giving them to me, although not strictly eye shadows. I got a thing of foundations the other day. I guess I'm becoming the make-up artist. Bought a few more sheets of the gray poster board that I'm using to make containers for Calypso. Shopped (office supplies, shoes). Labeled and mailed off the new year cards. Caught up on a couple of issues of ArtNews.

I'll be picking up my CD of photos of Calypso from Aaron tomorrow, and picking up supplies for the next issue of Pudding (and yes, makeup will be involved with this one); the Jan-Mar issue of Pudding must get out next week.

Back in the studio

Finished painting the last spread on the entire edition of Calypso, but haven't sanded all the back cover plexi yet. Spent the afternoon at Aaron's, photographing the book. Took about an hour and 45 minutes, probably because I was there asking for this and that! Should get the CD on Wed. It just absolutely poured as I arrived at his place, so the yard will be soaked for another few days.

Got my first drawing assignment from Suzy. One of the books she recommended arrived yesterday and I'm anxious to give it a try and see how it goes!

Another relaxing day

The trouble with taking a bit of time off is that it's deucedly hard to get back to work. And now that I've spent a bit of time in the garden, my mind's on all that I want to do in the garden and not so much on my next painting project, and I do have a project in mind that I need to be thinking about. And I need to finish my edition of Calypso. And anyhow, the ground is still a bit too wet for me to do much yet; I dug around a bit the last 2 days but it's still too muddy for planting, although I can set some rocks and concrete for paths.

Roslyn's group, The Tualatin Twelve, had their annual art show and sale today, so I went and visited with her. (Despite the name, there was no gun play.) Her work was definitely the best of the group. I bought a few of her cards (reproductions of her watercolors).

Spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up and decluttering. I talked to Sa'ad about coming to a potluck with a few of our friends to give a personal perspective about what's going on in Iraq, so I definitely need to clean house for that. I didn't get into the studio to work on the edition of Calypso, as I had planned for today, but I did do the write-up for the gocco class Laura wants me to teach in May, so I accomplished something. I must get a few more books finished tomorrow morning though, I'm off to the photographers at 3:30pm to get them photographed.

More about that Weight Room Magic

Put in another few hours slinging rocks and mud in the yard today, and I'm still not stiff and sore (except for the knees, just a little bit). Then went dancing for a few hours tonight (Tribal Stomp)...I'm so sold on this weight training business!

Did a little reading (that same German Expressionism book, for which I now owe something like $8 in late fees), but no studio time. I'll be back in the studio for a little bit tomorrow. but probably for the next 2 weeks will mainly be getting some yard work done and won't have very much studio time. Then it'll be taxes time again. Probably won't have any serious studio time for the 4 weeks, which is just as well, I'm still working out my next project in my head for the time being.

Appyhay ewnay earyay ofay ethay igpay!

Finished goccoing the Chinese New Year card this morning, mowed the lawn, went to the weight room, raked the lawn, and turned 2 composts (not tiny composts either, each was about 3'x3'x3'), and I'm Not Oy (TM)! It must be more of that Magic of Weight Training. My knees are a bit stiff though, don't know if there's anything I can do about that.

I think pretty much anyone reading this is already on my mailing list to get a new year card. But if you're not, or if you're not sure, and you'd like to get one, email me.

Saw an out of cycle movie tonight, 300. What a horrible movie. I was ready for some silly mindless entertainment, but this was bad beyond my expectations. I almost suggested that we leave part way through. It's even worse than The Curse of the Golden Flower...I think that movie had just a tiny bit of a plot, which is a great deal more than this one did.

A belated Chinese New Year card

Here's the front garden by the entry, after the dead plants have been removed and the sculptures put right side up again. Daffodils and tulips are up, the viburnum (on the left) has been blooming continuously since last October, the hellebore have been blooming for about a month or so.



Spent the afternoon laying out my Chinese New Year card (Year of the Pig) and started printing after dinner. Here's the first layer; I know, not too exciting. I wanted a framework for the top layer of text that will be printed last. This was a mixture of inks left over from printing Calypso (watercolor brown, bronze, plus some Dark brown). I stored all the leftover ink in Altoid tins, and they're keeping really well.



The 2nd layer, on the drying rack. This is the background text. It's a detail from an old manuscript. I love how they look all laid out in rows. I'm easily amused. The same ink as I used for the 1st layer, but I added a bit more dark brown and some leftover gold. These inks are just roughly mixed so there's a bit of variation from print to print, and also within a print the colors are variegated. The metallics are also coming through in areas.



A close-up.



Frontal view of the card with the first 2 layers. It's 11pm already; I think I'll print the next (and last) layer tomorrow.



I've printed the backside already, but that's just a bunch of text; no picture. I did find a typo/spello, I guess I'll have to fix that by hand. It's an edition of 88 (for those into Chinese lucky numbers).

A glorious day for yard work

Spent most of the afternoon working in the yard, cleaning up the winter debris and pruning the roses (I know, it's a bit late for that). Filled up my yard debris can in no time at all. It's looking better, but of course we know what an endless supply of work the garden is. I meant to take a picture of the Viburnum Bodnantense which has been blooming continuously since October (that's 4 months now). Will try to remember tomorrow.

All that weight training has paid off. I'm not achy and stiff after my day in the yard. But who knows what tomorrow will bring. Although, I never got my typical 'gocco back' from goccoing daily for almost 2 weeks, several hours a day, either.

Tomorrow -- goccoing the Chinese new year card (yes, I'm late on that front, too).

Catching up on stuff

Spent most of the afternoon catching up on correspondences and cleaning out my email boxes. There's still plenty to do. It was the book arts meet tonight, but only Sue and I were there. Saw her 'marionette' book. What a great idea, and what a hoot! The movie tonight was The Host; very much an edge-of-the-seat movie. And the sound track was great.

Admin day

The shadow book exchange is more or less finished at this point. Boxes of books went out for Ann, Sibyl, and Shane today. Lisa and I decided to wait for Robyn's books, so I still have that to deal with. Since only Lisa and I are waiting for Robyn, it's turned out to be a bit more complicated, with everyone except Robyn putting in 3 books (and getting 3 back), and Robyn putting in 2 books (and getting 2 back). Since she'll be getting one of mine and one of Lisa's, and Lisa and I will each get one of hers, it became more restrictive as to who will get what, and I couldn't manage to get one of the books I wanted. Well, I suppose if I spend enough time trying to figure out how to arrange it, I could've made it work, but I didn't have that much time.

And finally filled out my application for Portland Open Studios, which is now completely online. Still need to upload the images though. Next – deal with the Focus on Books exhibit and the Bainbridge Island exhibit.

Ordered the books that Suzy recommended for Tibetan Buddhist art. I might be entering into an apprenticeship for thangka restoration and conservation! I'm still a little undecided on that. On the one hand, a) it will be a very cool thing to learn about and b) it can become an income source, if I prove to be any good. However, a) it is a distraction from my main interests (Islamic art, miniatures) and b) it looks to be a 6 months - 2 year commitment (depending on how much time/week I can spend on it). If she did Persian miniature restoration, I would've jumped in head, belly, and feet first already. But as it stands, I'm a bit on the fence.

The first 5 boxed up and ready to go

Another day with lots of pictures. This was really from last Thursday, when the critique group met. I picked up the paper 'nest/skull' from our previous meeting. My intention was to make an origami ball and inflate it after I insert it though one of the openings. I wanted the ball to be big enough so that it can freely rattle around in the nest but not fall out. Well, after many attempts, I couldn't remember how to make a ball, so there's a cube in there instead. And the openings were really larger than I figured (partly because the paper nest/skull is pretty flexible), so I had to secure the cube. I also stitched up the largest opening. The cube is made from dyed tyvek; the 'threads' I used to sew up the opening were just thin strips of tyvek as well.



Okay! The first 5 signed and numbered copies of Calypso, in their little containers. Two of these are copies for myself and three are going to the exchange. I not going to worry about printing the titles on the spine for these; they're going out as they are.



The front cover. You can sort of make out that the title is casting a shadow.



The book opened up, the front view. The back cover is deliberately marked up, scuffed up, and the paper worn on the edges; you can't really tell from the photo though.



The back of the book.



I hope to take real pictures of the book later this week.

Tacoma Biennial (or, 41 artists)

This was the big field trip to Tacoma today, to see the biennial and go to the panel talks. Left the house at 8:45am and got home after 7pm. And we didn't really have enough time to see the biennial itself! By the time I picked up the rest of the gang in N. Portland and we arrived at Tacoma, it was time for lunch. The talk was at 1pm, so we only had 20 minutes to see the exhibit itself. There were 3 speakers for the 1st part, talking about regionalism/globalism, then it was a panel discussion with writers and critics of the region. It was interesting at times and pretty sleep inducing at times. 41 artists were in the show (chosen from amost 900 applicants). I really do wish we had more time.

It absolutely poured on the way back, just buckets. My knees are pretty sore from sitting most of the day (I drove both ways) and not getting to move around much.

3 artists

A whole day of visiting with other artists today. Margaret is wanting a web site, so we met this morning to talk over what she wants. Then I had a nice fun visit, no business, with Samantha, the very talented artist I met at the Rake show back in Jan. Then it was on to visit Laura to show her the books from the shadow exchange and to see about possibly doing a group exhibit in the future. Left the house at 10:45am and got home at 5:30pm, and spent all day talking/socializing, not what I'm used to. Now I'm ready for bed and it's not even 9pm. We're off to Tacoma to see the Northwest Biennial tomorrow. No studio time today.

Customer service

Called the Beaverton Art Media today and asked if they carried Arches Cover Gray. And indeed, they didn't. However, he followed up with "but we have Stonehenge Gray." Now that's much better customer service. Went in to pick some up, but the gray turned out to be more like taupe, but I bought a sheet to try anyhow. Also picked up a couple of sheets of gray poster board at Paper Zone, to see how that would work.

At the critique tonight, the feed back I got was that a nicer package would be better. So we talked about my earlier idea, which I had abandoned, of making some kind of an evening bag as a container, and people liked that much better. So I'll have to revisit that. In general though, everyone seemed to like the book; they also thought my $200 price was too low. So I'll have to rethink that again. For sure it's too low if it comes with the evening bag, but maybe it's too low even if I only had a simple box.

Although now that I'm thinking about it again, I'm remember why I abandoned the evening bag idea -- I was afraid that in the act of shelving or removing the book, the fabric would rub against the plexi and the gocco printed title, and that would eventually scratch off the lettering.

Alex had the idea of having a plexi box made. And maybe that's an option, if I go with a colored plexi rather than the clear plexi. Not sure how much that would cost.

Yesterday's bright idea

Lots of pictures today.

This was from a couple of days ago when I was painting the back with the eye shadow. I mixed a few different shades of shadows together to create this purply brown, which I pulverized. I mixed it with some egg medium, and decided that it was still too dense, so I've just added more medium to thin it a bit. You can see the eggy mix in the middle there.



I had known all along what I wanted the text on the back side to say, but I had figured that I'd write it in graphite and then smudge it. The 'bright' idea yesterday was that I should really gocco print the last word, 'beautiful'. It is also the first word in the book, and I like the symmetry. I used the same screen that was used to print the first page, which I had not really cleaned very well, but that was ok, because I wanted a splotchy kind of a look. Well, it actually printed better/cleaner than I was anticipating, but I did get some of the splotchy effect I was after. After I printed the word 'beautiful,' handwriting the rest of the words in graphite just didn't work (I tried). So I ended up using the gocco ink and a brush, and smudging those. Here they are, on the drying rack.



And on the bed.



So here are the first and last pages:





A couple of potted plants in my studio. The Cylamen has been blooming beautifully for over a week now.

Ouch!

Went to Utrecht's and didn't find anything suitable for making a little container for the book. Art Media next. Art Media now seems to have this 'concierge.' The last couple of times I've been there, after a couple minutes, she'd be there asking if I needed help. So today, I took her up on it, since I wasn't finding what I was looking for.

I explained that I needed a fairly heavy weight paper, but smooth, to make a small container for a book. She showed me a bunch of watercolor papers, which was not what I was after. So I asked if they carried Arches Cover Gray. She said, no they didn't. Which is fine, and she could've just left it at that. She should've just left it at that. But she went on to say "we only carry materials for students and pros."

Ouch!

I wonder how many people she insults in a days work? I hope she does that every time someone asks for something they don't carry...I hope I'm not special.

Well, I ended up with some Fabriano. I'm not sure that's what I'd use. And I don't believe what she said about the Beaverton store not having it, if the downtown store doesn't have it. I know I've seen it locally, somewhere.

Finished putting the covers on this afternoon. I found a piece of fuzz under the plexi on one that I did yesterday. So cross that one off.

When I was out on my walk tonight, I thought of a great idea, which of course involves printing one more layer on the back of the book. Now that the covers are on, I'll need to see if it will work. Tomorrow. The movie tonight was Black Snake Moan, a pretty intense movie. You couldn't tell which way it was going to go, it could all end very well, or it could all end very badly. I had my eyes closed and fingers in my ears towards the end...

Plexi to paper

I am almost done. I didn't think this day would ever come! The first 10 books are finished (although I still need to build containers for them). Maybe I've just been staring at them for too long, I'm not really all that happy with them any more, I just want to be finished. The all transparent and pristine white front cover is a real pain too, any little piece of fuzz, cat hair, dust bits, loose bristles that come off the brush -- there they are! The plexis aren't all square either, phooey.

Off to get some paper suitable for making containers tomorrow. Pictures tomorrow too.

Saw the Borodin Quartet tonight at the Chamber series. Wonderful players, and I always love the Tchaikovsky quartets anyhow.

Thangka painting restoration/conservation

We finally made it out to visit Suzy today. This was a visit that was originally planned for about a month ago; I had to cancel because I got sick.

It was a nice day for a drive, and we went out to Multnomah Falls for breakfast first before turning back to Corbett for our 1:30pm appt. Since this was Sunday, breakfast turned out to be all you can eat buffet for $20/person (!), a bit more expensive than I had figured. We squeezed in a short hike half way up the Falls after brunch.

Suzy has a very nice studio space and showed us 3 of the thangkas she's been working on (14-18 century). We also saw her photo album of the first 1/3 of the thangkas she restored. Very, VERY, impressive. From weaving in the missing fabric backing, repainting the missing bits/figures, de-oxidation (is that a word?), aging the pigments to match, it's really an incredible process. I guess she's one of a handful of people in the country (or maybe in the world) that does that. Some of the photos we saw, the originals were barely recognizable as to what they were, and when she was finished, they were whole and beautiful again.

Panic attack

As I was getting into bed last night, I suddenly had a panic attack -- I had taken my pristine, beautifully printed books and marked them all up! I didn't even remember to keep one unpainted, so I have it to remember how clean and well printed it was (!). I still think it's the right thing to do -- that it should be marked up, scratched up, smeared and smudged -- but it's hard to not have the clean/beautiful thing any more. At least I think it was the right thing to do...in either case, it's a done deal now. I'm all finished with the front side, and half way finished with the back side.

Tomorrow, we're off to visit Suzy Bennett out in Corbett. She's a painter and a conservator of Tibetan thangka paintings. We'll stop at Multnomah to have a late breakfast before heading out to Corbett.

Coloring with eye shadows

Ok, I've advanced to the last to final stage -- coloring with graphite and eye shadows. Actually, I'm not sure if this particular color was eye shadow or not. It's part of a huge package of all kinds of colors, and the woman who gave it to me said she used it as eye shadows at times. But it's magenta. I mixed an egg medium, and the colors are staying unless you rub it really hard, which is perfect. I do want it to smear and smudge a bit over time. I tried just applying the eye shadow directly, but that was smearing too easily.

This is a mockup of what I'm planning to do, with some modifications and variations:



Here's the lot of them, with this one particular page done and laid out to dry:

First Thursday

There was still a bit of business/email to deal with for the Print Arts show, then I finished the Tupper interview and put it up on the Portland Open Studios blog. Squeezed in about an hour and half working on Calypso before I had to leave for FT. There were a fair number of people there, considering the not-so-good weather. I'm glad it's all more or less finished at this point. Back to my regularly scheduled programming.

[Update at midnight: I just finished folding and gluing the text blocks for Calypso!]

Preview photos

Here are some photos from last night's preview of The Printed Page, An Exhibit of Artists' Books by American Printmakers, at Print Arts Northwest that Roberta Lavadour and I co-curated. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, so these are just from my phone.

This is Diane Jacobs' tablets (based on her book Alphabet Tricks which you can see on the lower right). Each tablet has a letterpress printed page and a ceramic figure for illustrating the page.



This is a general view of the gallery interior. The works shown from L to R are: Sara Owen, Karen Kunc, Jessica Spring:



Two books by Daniel Heyman. He was invited to sit in during interviews with Abu Ghraib prisoners and 'sketch' in drypoints and watercolors. After he returned, he made woodblock prints based on the watercolors, and here is the resulting book (the one on the left):



From L to R: two books by Ruth Lingen, one by Cathrine Michaelis, and two by Barb Tetenbaum:



Two very fun books by Jessica Spring: on the left, a book of old proverbs, and on the right...what do you call those spinner things?



Two stunning books by Karen Kunc:



And in the other window, a book by Inge Bruggeman: