A BELATED BEST WISHES FOR THE YEAR OF THE RAT

For the 6th year, I have made a woodblock print for a print exchange sponsored by Barenforum.org. The print each year depicts the Chinese Zodiac animal. You can read about the exchange here.



This year's animal is the rat. My intention was to make the rat look like he is cutting a block of wood to make a woodblock print. That is why the year is backwards. I figured printmakers would get it, but already, two of the printmaker recipients have asked if I intended to make the year backwards. Oh well. For any printmaker who is might be interested in how I print. I print with watercolor using Hanga (Japanese) technique. This print was done reductive, with one piece of wood.

The Chinese New Year started on Feb. 8. I flew to Juneau on that morning, returned on Friday. My main reason for going was a doctor visit. As always when I go there, I do much more. The trip to Juneau takes about a half hour. We sometimes follow the coast line, but this time we went through the pass over the Chilkats. Here are some pictures I took.






Over the Chilkats


White caps in Lynn Canal


Approaching Juneau



The week before last, I discovered a new way to paint. Though I much prefer to paint from life, most of my larger landscapes are from photos. I took so many good photos last summer, with intention to paint a few. I was going to print out a photo to work on painting but my ink was out, so decided to try painting from my lap top. OMG! Can't believe I never had tried this before.




This was from a photo taken last August when four women friends and I spent 3 fabulous days kayaking and camping.

The weather was bitter cold last week.... Juneau was horrid with Taku winds. Quite a lot of snow, but today it is raining.