Artwork, etc.: phase 5 - trying again. again. again

It was a busy week - I feel like I spent the week frantically trying to get things done before I shift into hibernating mode (which was the start of daylight savings time. yesterday.)

Art thing #1 - I reached a resting point for this series - 'Excerpts from the Magical Land of No' (see previous post for pictures of the individual pieces.) I made 6 new ones this week (:o -> emoticon for 'Eep!' ) They're 6 x 6" each and can be arranged in grids or a line to make a "build your own adventure" story.

I enjoy these - I think they're really fun...but I also want to see them bigger, so I started carving the goldfish larger.

This is a big step for me because so far,I've been carving with the size of the block (9 x 12") as a maximum, but with this one I broke the design up over 2 blocks.

And there's the tail, still in process with
valiant assistance from Feline Assistant Jr.
I've resumed my "winter carving station,"
kneeling with my feet and legs over the heat vent.

8.5 x 11" (except for the lower left, where I tried 8 x 10)

I'm also getting ready for Print Fair North . It's my first print fair - I'm nervous and feel like there's still a lot to do to get ready (eep!) Most of all, I want to have good work for it! I decided to go with one of my favorites in addition to the birds from last week - parrots.

I like the birds from last week, but decided I wanted to try incorporating text into the background in gray on gray paper. But what to use...

I wanted to use something I already have, and I had a funny experience this week where I came across someone else voicing my exact thought on the internet. It got me thinking how even things like relationships that seem like they would be unique are really just variations of a type (but then again, so are sunsets or flowers and each one is still beautiful, and I'd rather have a day with flowers and a pretty sunset than not, so...? (Hmmmm.))

I also marbelized more paper
- I think this may be the prettiest sheet yet.

I did a little digital digging and - did you know that divorce papers come pre-loaded as a standard template form in Microsoft Word? So do hospital billing forms. These things that can altar a person's life, and they come standard on most PCs - just push print. Haha.

I took them and converted them into fancy Gothic script, trying to give them some (still generic, but I tried) respect, then added the parrot so that now, each one is unique and irreproducible...but also a variant of a type. The quote in the other two is a favorite from Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art.