The Narwhal part 23

Got to the Studio early today, partly to settle some teaching things, and partly to get this narwhal done.  Squeezed out a little water based black ink, got a brush, and carefully applied the ink all around the edge, where the roughness of the wood kept the black ink from sticking when applied with a brayer.  Now it's a uniform black.   Blotted some of the excess with newspaper, and then I thought I had photographed the results, but I find no photo on the camera.  Perhaps something distracted me.  So you get this instead-

For music I chose to bring one from home- John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, an acoustic blues duo (Piedmont style- Virginia coast) who put out an album in 1984 called Dog Days of August, which pretty well describes what we have right now. It remained on the radio station B list (newish, but not our usual college rock format) for quite a while, and ended up getting played on my blues radio show regularly.  A good record then, but I really came to appreciate it years later, when I caught the pair performing on the acoustic stage at the River Blues Festival in Philadelphia in 1990. I have seen many excellent live blues performances over the years, including all the legends who were still alive when I became a blues fan, but this live show may be the best one I have ever seen, which is why I chose this image of John Cephas (based on a photo I took that day) as the inspiration for a two block linocut print, done as a demo piece for a workshop.  Sadly, he's been dead a few decades now, but I can still enjoy the record.

Meanwhile, the narwhal piece is now back in my car, until the ink is dry.