Drawing and Printing

During December I did a series of pencil drawings of objects around me that I like–many of them handmade and beautiful for their non-perfection. I haven’t drawn with pencil recently and I did so while seeing if I could come up with ideas for a miniature print competition I’m thinking of entering. The ideas for the prints were slow to develop and for a while I thought I might try variations of the drawings as prints. This, however, didn’t happen–I felt too constrained by the small 3″ x 4″ size of the blocks.

What did happen, was that I felt freed up through all the drawing I’d done to come up with some spontaneous images that I’ve developed into prints. They are very unlike the drawings and, in an indirect way, a few of them reflect for me the atmosphere of recent awful world news. I’ve printed the images on Japanese paper and they’re drying now.

Here’s a few of the drawings. I increased the contrast digitally so you can see the lines easier.

And here’s the block prints with titles I’m considering.

Who?:

Then and Now: (Renamed Look Out in February)

The Conductor:

Hard Times: