This is from a sketch I’d done years ago. The background seemed boring so I kept the trees and added moon, hills & water. The title ‘The Nearness of you,’ was from a song I heard while engraving. Easiest title ever.
The Nearness of you
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Category Archives: letterpress
Why is that barn red?
A woman came to me at a show, pointed at this engraving and asked why some barns were painted red. I was a bit embarrassed to admit I didn’t know. The search engine DuckDuckGo was most helpful.
Seems that hundreds of years ago (long, long before Home Depot) many farmers would seal the wood on their barns with linseed oil, an orange-coloured oil derived from the seeds of the flax plant. To this oil, they would add a variety of things, most often milk and lime, but also ferrous oxide, or rust. Rust was plentiful on farms and because it killed fungi and mosses that might grow on barns, it was very effective as a sealant. It turned the mixture red in colour and, Voila! a Red Barn.
Channel to the Bay
An oldie from a drawing looking out to Georgian Bay from the Thirty Thousand Islands, an archipelago on the east side of the Bay. A very peaceful place to sit and sketch.
Pandemic prints
Early on in the year I did a B&W, 4.5 x 5, covid inspired print titled ‘Passing Storm’. As we know the ‘storm’ has been what the weather folks would call a ‘very slow moving disturbance.’
When effective vaccines were announced I did a more hopeful, 5.5 x 8 print I’ve titled ‘2012, the view from here.’
Hopefully a bright, cheerful addition will be warranted very soon :- )
Black
I love the incredible solids that engraving allows and I have a ‘thing’ about prints showing falling objects. With this print I indulged myself on both accounts. I named it ‘Night Fall.’
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS!!!!
A favourite Christmas print, my youngest daughter’s first limited edition. She drew, dad engraved and we pulled a proof. She coloured it in, dad engraved plates for the colours then we printed.
Santa has grown chubbier since then; dad, not quite as much. She’s still quite cute!
WAYZGOOSE: Saturday April 27th
Here’s a great show that features engravers, small letterpress printshops, unbelievable bookbinding and many related artisans as well as printing ephemera and books.
….and us, Raven Press.
Come early, see the show then take a hike along a wooded trail on top of the nearby Niagara Escarpment!
An explanation of the process.
At last night’s show I tried to explain how the plates were printed and used. I didn’t have any sample bits there to make it easy to explain so I’m posting these pics which, hopefully, explain it all.
The bulk of my engraving is done with ‘V’ shaped knives like the one shown but on these plates I used a drimmel in order to get more organic looking shapes. The inset pic shows how everything BUT the image is cut away.
The progressive sheet shows how a three colour print comes together.
This Month in Grimsby, Ontario!
This is a great show if you’re interested in letterpress printing and the related arts. If you make it, be sure to drop by our booth.
Incoming.
This was a print of a somewhat abstract painting I did of a storm that was moving in. A bit of random rolling out of ink in the background for a slight ‘organic’ feel.
Luther Marsh
The Luther Marsh is a large, man made lake that affords sanctuary for many, many birds, migratory and otherwise. Areas of it still have the trees that died when the area was flooded and some of these support nests like the Blue Heron nest in my print.
What a difference a grey makes!
Most printmakers show progressive prints as a sort of educational/interest thing, I’m doing it just to get a bad pun out of my head and into the subject line.
It feels better already.
OMG!!! It’s September already.
After visiting the cheek to jowl State campgrounds in New York and Pennsylvania in August, it was a treat to canoe out into the peace and quiet of northern Georgian Bay’s archipelago.
At some point in the past some really, really, strong individuals arranged a few really, really, massive stones into a fireplace complete with seating with, of course, a wonderful view. The sketch was an attempt to capture the tangle of trees on the opposite shore.
In Flanders Fields
One hundred years ago one of Guelph’s better known sons, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a soldier, physician and poet wrote ‘In Flanders Fields.
As part of exhibitions marking the occasion the Guelph Museum is hosting a juried exhibition of related artworks. My print ‘The Survivors’ was one of the artworks chosen.
To me the war conjures up visions of more than poppies and crosses. I envision the other casualties of war, of the long lines of refugees and of wounded soldiers returning to their homes. I see the shells of buildings and a landscape badly scarred.
My print was for those people who, having survived, were now ready to move forward towards a sparse landscape but one with a promise of better things to come.
The poem reads as follows:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. .
Sentinel
At the moment, what I like about this print is the total absence of snow. Perhaps even more is that it reminds me of a sunny afternoon sitting on a huge rock with a friend drawing rocks and trees and water and rocks and trees and water, but mostly enjoying the sun.
clive lewis, printmaker 