Lily S. May–Life with Art
I've been drawing some objects in our apartment that I love. These include a wooden hawk that we once bought at a lawn sale in our neighbourhood, a ceramic cookie jar that we bought decades ago at a large art fair in Toronto and a little stone elephant that I can't recall how we acquired.… Continue reading Household Jungle
My mother's name was Bernice Barsel. She lived from 1922 - 2014. She was a prolific artist and it is through her that I took up creative work. I surprised myself earlier this week by thinking it would be a shame if her work went unknown and invisible beyond the circle of people who already… Continue reading My Mother’s Artwork
I've made some carved adjustments to the Wake Up print but haven't yet printed the results. What I have been doing is dismantling and cutting up old paintings that I've felt are not my best. I'm working, slowly, to whittle down my stuff--whether works I've made or things I've bought. As part of that I've… Continue reading Canvases in Pieces
I've spent a few weeks seeing if I could come up with a plan to turn two paragraphs of my writing into a linocut--the actual words, that is. At first the plans had little grace, then the reality of carving so many letters felt stifling. A few words here and there is something I enjoy,… Continue reading Box Mask Print
I've been working and not working on this linocut since March or April. I put it aside after seeing the first proof. In it, the creature's body was not working right for me--it was not defined enough. The rough print has been hanging folded on my bulletin board since then. I had intended to print… Continue reading Mercy for the Children Linocut
I carved this linocut in March or April, took a rough proof, made the adjustments I thought it needed and finally printed the image last week.
Yesterday I printed the "Portrait of a Wary Bird" in black oil based ink. It's on a lovely Japanese paper whose name I have unfortunately misplaced. Here she or he is:
This is a proof of my most recent block print. I've been using this blue water-based ink for proofing because it's easy to clean up. It gives me enough of an idea of the shapes and textures to see if I need to make any changes. For completed prints I use a washable oil based… Continue reading Portrait of a Wary Bird
Here's part of the proof of the lino block that I showed in my last post. The full print had a bit too much body and humorously looked like a cross between a cloud and sheep. When I played around with folding the paper, I preferred the image you see here. I'm going to print… Continue reading Amended Lino
I'm still out here. I've been ill off and on but now I want to show you what I've been doing over the last month. First of all I received the catalogue for the international miniature print exhibits that I was in. It was fabulous to see one of my prints among so many excellent… Continue reading Back Again
Arts of May 