Moving in: Canopy!

Last month I moved into a new studio space at Canopy with my friend + artist Cathy Savage. Cathy’s been my art marketing partner in crime for the last couple of years, and we were both ready to take the leap, so it seemed like a natural fit.

Canopy is a new creative complex over on the eastside, located at 916 Springdale Rd, we’re in suite 218. Canopy has individual artist studios, gallery + office space and even a spot for a cafe or restaurant.

Moving has been slow, but things are finally starting to take shape!

Canopy has artist studios, gallery + office space and even a spot for a restaurant.

Shelves going up

Hanging art on the walls for the progressive studio tour

 

Right now Cathy and I are trying to figure out when we’ll have a studio warming party, but first we need to finish moving in. We’ll keep you up to date on the details as they happen.

The stars at night

The stars in Big Bend are magical. This photo was taken by Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer we heard speak while we were in the park last week. He’s started an initiative to preserve the night sky in National Parks from light pollution, called Dark Sky Parks and also educates park rangers and guides about the stars. Turns out Big Bend is the darkest National Park in the lower 48 and is the second officially designated Dark Sky Park. We had a great time camping and hiking there with my Dad and Stepmom. We also went to the McDonald Observatory where we got to see the moons of Jupiter moving in orbit and the stripes of the storms on Jupiter’s surface. Mind blowing and magical.

The South Rim, looking across into Mexico

Sotols in Big Bend

Now that we’re back,  I’m trying to catch up and am working on putting together some wood supports for my new bird relief prints:

Flights of fancy

Sometimes the best surprises happen when you have no preconceived ideas. A week or so ago I was meeting a WPA member for open studio and decided to go in early. I wanted to play around with a chipboard plate I’d laser cut at Makeatx way back in May. I lasered the chipboard with the same bird image from one of my favorite recent pieces, Flight over the Dead Sea. In the original the birds were a trace monotype, each draw by hand, which gave a really nice effect but was super time consuming. I wanted to be able to play around with the same imagery without having to hand draw them each time. First I tried wiping the plate intaglio, but the ink kept wiping out, almost like an open bite. So then I tried rolling it up relief:

I then realized I was out of paper, and routing around in my drawer I found some strips of paper that I’d saved after tearing them down for other prints. The long horizontal format seemed like a good fit for a strips of sky:

The dark strip at the top is first pull, fully inked. For the second and third ones I didn’t re-ink the plate, just put down another piece of paper, the ghost and ghost’s ghost made a cool ombre effect. After gray I tried blue, orange and red:

I also found some etching scraps in my drawer that I’d been hoarding because they were too pretty to toss. I tried a layer of birds on top of them too:

WEST!

I’m excited to be a part of the second annual West Austin Studio Tour! This year’s tour will run two weekends, April 27th & 28th and May 4th and 5th. More details to come.

American Short Fiction Totes

ASPCO, the screen printing co-op I belong to, has been in the process of moving for the last month and a half. I’m really excited about the new space, it’s huge and in a great spot with lots of other cool business (including Hops & Grain, mmmmm.)

Sitting on my hands waiting has been the hardest part, so I was glad when my friend Rebecca asked me to print some tote bags for her literary magazine, American Short Fiction. Helping out a friend plus and excuse to get in the new studio? Done!  They turned out really well, thanks Rebecca and Adeena for coming down to the studio to help out!

Ready for spring?

It might be a little while longer before the wildflowers come out in earnest, but the spring tea towel line was ready for its close up a few weeks ago:

wildflower tea towels

Like the chickens, these guys started out as watercolors.

            

After the photo shoot they got bundled into press kits for wholesalers.

going to the birds

I spent the weekend working on some new designs for the spring tea towel line. I love all the different varieties of heirloom chickens; did you know Austin has the second highest urban chicken population in the US?

fluffy heirloom chicken

rooster in progress

heady study; they really start to look like dinosaurs after a while

rooster

hen + chicks