I'm always scouring the internet for information about linocut carving and printing trying to see what everyone is doing and how they are doing it.  I'm a bit of a technique junky.  I'm very interested in what people use to carve on and with, so when I came across this video on youtube, I was facinated.  No special carving tools here, just a plain exacto knife and an eraser.  I've since tried this technique and it's not as easy as it looks in the video.  This person is very skilled!  However, it's not difficult either.  It works wonderfully with Softkut, which is made for linocutting tools, but I find it's too soft for my Speedball carving tools.  This technique is quite addictive.  Just don't jab your fingers!

These days I've been burying myself in printmaking; trying to get ready for our upcoming gallery show.  It's in four short weeks! EEK!  So when my cat Gatsby became entranced by something under my table, I barely noticed.  I had a passing thought that it might be a bug of some sort and this didn't worry me because Gatsby is great at ridding our house of bugs.  He finds them all tasty.    That was when I heard what I can only describe as a small scream.  "EEEEE  EEEEEE EEEEE"  Not very loud, but I know bugs never scream.  Then out from under my desk sprang a large green frog!  Gatsby didn't quite know what to do either.  The frog was evidently not happy as he continued to go EEEE EEEEE.  I grabbed Gastby before he could see if frog was tasty, overturned a box of printing supplies and quickly caught Mr Frog.  I slid a cutting mat underneath him and took him to the backyard, where you see him here.   He didn't stay long and continue to scream as he leaped away.  Unfortunatley, I don't think he enjoyed his studio tour.

Did you ever watch Mr. Roger's Neighborhood?  I think I appreciate it more as an adult than I did when I was little.  I recently saw a re-mix of  his song "Garden of Your Mind" and it's the inpiration for this print.  The print is still a work in progress as I want to re-do the letters, but when I saw the Illustration Friday word this week, I thought it fitted perfectly.  Mr. Rogers really was one of a kind.

This is a little linocut for Illustration Friday, done on one of my favorite Japanese  papers.  The paper is so beautiful, I  can't really take credit.  I call this cats on mats!

If you've been to my blog before, you may have noticed that I just changed the background from white to a close-up of one of my paintings.  I've tried to alter the template of my site here before and never succeeded.  I'm not sure if I like the effect, or if it's too busy, but after 2 hours of fiddling with the HTML code, I think I'll leave it for a little while!  Soon I hope to tackle updating the header.  Hopefully this won't be quite so difficult!

It's the labour day week-end.  A time I used to dread when I was little because it meant the end of freedom.  It also meant a new beginning.  The start of a new school year always seemed more like the start of a new year than January 1st.  This year I hope to be spending more time doing art and blogging about it!  Life sometimes gets better when you get older!  To start this fall year off, I spent sometime toodling around the country side looking at the scenery and gathering ideas.  I saw a nice beach and had a tasty lunch, but I won't bore you with that.  It's the quirky things that I love to find and collect with my camera (cheaper than buying them!)  These are a few of my quirky finds!