In a few weeks time I’m going to be part of christmas show at a local gallery that I like a lot called Doggett St Gallery. Their annual christmas group show is always themed around all of the images being no more than 30x30cm (12×12 inches) in size. I’ve been going to these shows for some years now but this is going to be the first time I’ve ever been a part of one.
I tried one block recently only to realise that it was going to be to big, so I set myself a challenge to try to do a woodblock etching or something as close as I could get to one seeing as I’ve only done woodcuts up til now. I got my hands on three end rounds of Qld Maple that were between 15 and 20cm in diameter and off I went.
The first one I tried turned out all right, if not a little messy (or freehand) for what I was hoping. The second one I tried turned out much better and last Saturday I sat down and designed up one last one in what became a themed series of the sea. On Sunday I had lunch, sat down and four hours later I had this block of a turtle in stormy seas:
I was quite happy with how it turned out and not to make a big deal out of it, the thing that made me so pleased is that a bit over a year ago I tried to do a turtle to the best of my ability and… well I kinda failed at it as far as I was concerned (at the time).
Now after printing my new turtle I made some adjustments and added some lines so that he/she sat down in the water a bit more. This is the final print:
I know it might not be christmasy but that’s not really bothering me at the moment. I’m just happy to have succeeded on a block so small. However now I’m back to starting something large again, more animals, only twice the size of these.
