Christmas 2025 is Coming part 1

 We are at the end of November right now, so that means time to start thinking about this year's Christmas card.  It takes a while to draw, cut, print, and color the cards, so if I want to get them out even close to the holiday, I have to start now.  Towards that end, I have been looking at potential art historical works, both on the internet and in books, and have narrowed it down to a few options, and I will have to decide soon.  Meanwhile, today I worked on preparing a piece of wood.   Last time I was in the Studio, I noticed a piece of wood that might work, so today I cut it in half, and then glued to two halves together.  The goal was to create a wider piece, something that would hold the entire piece of paper on it, which makes it easier to print them when the time comes for that. (a single piece of wood is large enough to have to card image itself)  Results can be seen below:

My plan in the coming days is to pick a subject, draw it on the longer half of the block, and when I am satisfied, cut the whole thing out, which can be done in a single session at that size.  Throughout the day I added more glue to each side, so now I have a stable block.  Whether or not it will hold together during to cutting and printing processes is another story, but I'll deal with that as it happens.

The other thing I had to take care of today was find out what is going on tomorrow.  Last night my mother saw something online about an open studio event at my building.  Problem was that I had heard of no such thing, and I had been in the office a few days ago.   An open studio is the kind of thing I should know about, especially if I am going to participate.  So today I made sure to ask.  What I found out was that there will be a holiday art market going on in the building tomorrow, and from how these have gone in the past, this will be heavily attended, but few people will go down the basement, and the building will make no effort to get people down there (holiday vendors will be on floors 1 to 3) so there is no point to me hanging around in my space waiting for visitors.  As a result, I won't be going there tomorrow, and will wait for the next official open studio event to open up my space to visitors.

Me And The Devil Blues part 1

Time for the last Robert Johnson print in this series.  This is the last because I have no more ideas, and because the planned show is not happening now.  I continued the series beyond learning that the Nashville show wasn't happening, because I still had some ideas, and it was still a series to work on, but it will end with this one.  When they will be exhibited I have no idea, but I don't see that as a problem right now.

This last one is Me and the Devil Blues, which is a fairly evil song (as one might expect), but I had one more idea from my original list, so I decided to do it.  The lyric I chose is "you may bury my body, down by the highway side" (the line that follows is "so my evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride")  As such, this is one of the most literal interpretations in this series of prints, showing an area next to the highway where a body has been buried, and a little piece of a 50's era Greyhound bus (actually combined bits of two buses of that era) stopped by the highway side to pick up few passengers.  No sign of Johnson rising from his grave to board that bus, so maybe he did it already, or maybe it has yet to happen.  I put an exit sign near the point in the highway that the bus has stopped, with a sign that combines aspects of a local road sign (see the above photo) and actual signs from the Garden State Parkway and I-57 in Illinois, since Johnson is known to have passed that way in his travels. (found those other signs on the internet, which has everything if you know where to look for  it)  The background plants make use of plants I have used in previous prints, and images from those internet photos. 

As I was busy working on my block I got a surprise visit- Molly.  She doesn't often come in at this time to work, but today she did, so naturally we had some conversation around bits of silence as we were working.  My goal was to complete my usual starting point- the outside margins of the image area.   I got all that done, and Molly worked on some towels, adding more silkscreened bits to each of some already started.  The music I put on (the Gun Club, first album and some from a live album, appropriate for today's print it seemed) ended, so I decided to leave the Studio to Molly and get to my next stop.

I'm A Steady Rollin' Man part 11

I had another piece of the right paper torn to the right size, so I figured why not get up to the Studio and pull another, hopefully better, copy of the latest print, with the text.  So this morning I did just that.  I got up there, cleared off my work table, and set up to print.  No cutting this time, just inking, taping, and printing.  Below you can see the block and today's print, side by side.  

This is definitely the cleanest copy I have ever made, thanks to extra taping, planned at home.  The only significant flaw is that it's a little low on the paper, not leaving me a lot of room to sign it and mat it.  However, I am happy with the results, and I will declare that I am finished with this particular print.  Next time I work on something else.

I'm A Steady Rollin' Man part 10

In the morning I went back to the Studio with a plan- to cut away most of the unwanted marks from the block, so they wouldn't take ink anymore.   Then print the block again.  So that's what I did.  I cleared my work table and cut away what I didn't want from the block.  At the same time, I removed some blue tape that I had left behind last time.  Most of the stray marks were around the lettering (the song lyrics), but there were also things removed from the margins and the image area.  A photo of some of these scraps can be seen below:

After I was done cleaning up the block I pulled a new proof.  It was better than the last one I did, but still not perfect, so I may try again next week to get one suitable for framing and exhibition.  But at least I won't have to clean the block again. 

I'm A Steady Rollin' Man- Finished

 Got up to the Studio in the morning, prepared to make a few cuts and print the results.   The block was ready for more cutting, having taken a blotter proof of it late last week.   Not a lot of cuts, but I had looked at my first proof a lot and had decided what needed to be cut before getting up there, so it didn't take long to do it once I got there.   I removed some uncut stuff (don't know what I was thinking), in the phone dial, and on the ring box.  Another major change was a letter in the whiskey bottle label, inexplicably created forwards, which would not do at all in my printed version.  I had determined that I could cut a little of it away, and fix it with a little hand coloring on the finished print.  So that's what I did.  Some minor cutting after that, and I was ready to print.

I tore some of the right paper to the proper size, enough to make two proofs.   First I pulled one like my first one, without the lyrics, then I pulled one with the lyrics.   Neither is my final version (both have smudges and other marks) but this lets me know that I am done with this piece. and ready to move on to the next thing.  Below is a photo of the latter proof:

I'm not sure yet what will be next.  Maybe the last Robert Johnson print (I have some ideas), or maybe a boardwalk print.  Whatever I start, I may have to stop for a while to work on this year's holiday card, whatever that turns out to be.