I Pug You! block print by Gale Everett

Valentines day is approaching and I just ran a limited edition (15 prints) of “I Pug You!” to be posted on my Etsy site. Print measures 7″x7″. Still trying to determine a price and matting size.

Printed on Kozo lightweight paper using an oil based etching ink.

The name popped up while Dave & I were driving home from our Wednesday night gathering. I asked him “what should I title the print?” and he immediately came up with “I Pug You!” It’s a keeper!

Etsy site link visible under Contact page.

Flooding has hit valley & coastal communities. 1996 was the last big flood year, until now. The Mary’s river jumped her banks and flooded parts of Philomath & surrounding farmland. It even came right up to where my husband works, but not in their back door. South & north Corvallis were also effected. It’s nice to live next to a wetland, but when you receive over 3″ in 48hrs, the wetlands often move into your living room. My heart goes out to all the folks displaced due to the weather.

Our home is situated on a hillside with inadequate french drains when this sort of weather hits. The runoff starts pooling under the foundation and has been known to show up in our downstairs. Never a good thing. This year our tub drain, open & situated below the foundation slab, helped remove the rising water. I think I’m actually glad we haven’t finished the bathroom yet! You can see the drain in the below photo looking like a black circle in the water.

Where the water comes in…

Our back yard has part of Crocker Creek running through it. When it overflows, not much is effected. The neighbor just east of us had a bit more water swirling over his far back yard.

The creek overflowing it’s banks

Our soggy back yard.

Last Saturday I saw my first Turkey Vulture of 2012 and its almost a month early (they migrate south to California & Mexico in early October). The warmer wetter weather of La Nina certainly changes everything. Where is our winter snow for the mountains? Saturday was also the drop off day for the Howland Community Open show at The Arts Center in Corvallis.  I did submit a print. Looks like it’s going to be another excellent show with great community support.

I’ve been pushing to finish a project (donation) due before Feb 1 for Chocolate Fantasy. Photos and a write up are due at that time. I should probably be organizing a photo shoot with my favorite photographer Harold Wood… hmm, maybe tomorrow. Today I’ve been prepping the nine 4″x4″  frames to accept paper silhouettes. Cutting more silhouettes tomorrow, 7 more to go!

It all depends. If the project feels like mental torture, I’ll avoid it. For example: last week creating bowls seemed to be at the bottom of my list even though there happens to be money involved. Weird. This week, completing the final print for the trio of wildflowers seems like the hardest to mentally overcome. So I’m giving it a break. Instead I’ll work on bowls & cut paper silhouettes. What ever happened to all those dog prints? Maybe that’s for the following week.

Monday I created 16 wheel thrown bowls. Not bad for 25# of clay.  I’m hoping they won’t be too large for a special order. There still remains a mental pressure of needing to finish individual soup bowls for the rest of the family in Texas/Chicago/ Connecticut (25 bowls total). At 3 am Tuesday (a touch of insomnia creeping in) I figured out the solution. Those who didn’t receive the soup bowls will now receive a single serving bowl per home. This will allow me an opportunity to play with larger lumps of clay and try a little different form. Maybe I’ll get the rice bowls thrown today or tomorrow.  Trimming on Thursday/Friday? A distinct possibility since Saturday is the new tub installation day. Yes, we did have a touch of snow that altered my dad’s ability to return to the valley, but the rain seems to be back now.

Sea Squirts progress: Only five more to deck out with tentacles to bring the total up to 24! The squirts took on the new name of “Pulpo”. That’s octopus in Spanish. There’s just something about that word that I find endearing. However, looking at the vat of baby octopus in the fish market Saturday was terribly unappetizing. With the hubby fluent in Spanish and me not, I surprised him by calling them the correct name. It wasn’t even labeled that way. The word must have seeped into my lingo via cooking shows. I love eating well prepared squid but find it difficult to consume its cousin. Anyway, the name shift will only apply to those with curling tentacles. The short straight tentacles will remain Squirts. Color choice to be determined very soon.

The trillium print is still transitioning and will look better once I better define leaf vs petal (watercolors will help too)?  Maybe. It’s all too similar looking right now. Today I realized that the trio of wildflower images will not be the donation for The Arts Center. Instead I’ll create a smaller version of  “A Walk in the Woods” for Chocolate Fantasy. More silhouette cutting to come over the next several days.

Saturday is the drop-off for the community art show in Corvallis. The newly covered walls will go through some major trauma with this starting show. Think floor to the top of the walls covered in art! Nail holes everywhere! Tomorrow I’m scheduled to help participate with wall painting.  Hopefully  I’ll have a car to use. Will I be participating in the community show this year? I guess. Not terribly enthusiastic about it. I’ll probably drop off a shooting star print. Nothing flashy but something that might sell.

Onward with the week!

Yesterday an invitation came via email for a show in July. Wow, somebody thought enough of my work to invite me! No jury process! I promptly responded with a huge “YES!” The show will be up during the amazing daVinci Days extravaganza. Not heard of daVinci Days? Well, it’s an Oregon festival blending science, art & music held on OSU’s lower campus for 3 days. Absolutely fun for everyone. Like kinetic sculptures? Science? Live music? Film Festival? They have all that and much more. This year’s theme has not shown up on their website…  I’m guessing it has to to with the oceans. The show I was invited to participate in is titled “The Art of Plankton”.

You might think “Plankton? What the heck?”  Well, many years back I wanted to be a marine biologist. During high school, I assisted a friend with teaching marine biology & ornithology to talented & gifted kiddos on U of O’s campus. I soaked up all related courses at the local college. My amazing friend Terri Herbert went on to receive a masters in marine education through OSU. She had two kids that needed a big sister to watch over them. That’s where I stepped in and spent two summers living with them on campus in Newport. What an amazing experience! The kids and I rambled the halls, checking freezers for the newest dead critters (frozen carcases of seals & small cetaceans were always present) and even playing with the octopus after closing hours (under supervision). We participated in the necropsy of multiple porpoises, a grey whale & sea lions. The smell still lingers in my brain. We were able to attend field trips with amazing researchers. Oh, and I met my husband who happened to be working with whale guru Bruce Mate at the time. It’s really not a wonder why I chose to attend OSU and it certainly led to many adventures, failures & no science degree. If I had not taken that path I might not have been brought back into the world of art.

Our household is still involved in oceanography thanks to my husband. He works for WET Labs, a small business that creates oceanographic instruments for all sorts of water studies. When I mentioned the name of the researcher (Angelique White) providing images for artist’s to work from, he knew exactly who I was talking about. Makes sense but I forget how small the oceanographic community is in Corvallis.

So the little sea squirts I’ve been making stem from a deeper history. They are now sporting tentacles reminiscent of an octopus or basketstar (in the echinoderm family). As I work on these little guys my brain is wandering into the plankton world. I’m wondering if a nori tea would dye paper to an interesting color, because I’m certainly not going to boil fresh seaweed for coloring paper! Well, maybe I could experiment as long as it doesn’t leave a bad smell. Do I want to incorporate light? I already have a feeling it will be another wire structure covered with paper. Do I want to just focus on diatoms or venture into larger plankton or examples of all levels? Ah, the joy of new things to ponder!

My big sister came for an afternoon visit & plans shifted. Two weeks ago she & I had started talking about creating ceramic buttons. We found some sweet hand made ones at the new yarn shop in Corvallis. I said “We can make those and have Kirsten (her daughter) come down from Portland! A craft day!” Figuring out everything is still in the works. When she stopped by today, I pulled out a little clay, flopped out a slab, pulled some stamps out and started making samples. I really haven’t thought about what is required in creating buttons. What size/shape do we want? What will they be sewn to? Will they actually be sturdy enough?  How thick should they be before drying & firing? After playing around a bit I determined another trip to Georgie’s for a small circle cutter might be necessary or raid the kitchen drawers for a cookie cutter yet again. More to figure…. When Kim & Kirsten really do meet up at my home, I’ll probably have a few examples to show them. Another fun chance to share arts & crafts with people I love.

I did manage to work on a 5″x 5″  Trillium print during the morning. The original image was taken last spring & I’m not certain which type of Trillium it might be. Hoping to finish it tomorrow.

Where did that serious focus go? Guess there’s always Tuesday!

I started work on more Sea Squirts over the weekend while watching a documentary on shark packs off Australia & New Zealand. Always a fascinating subject and certainly a critter I wouldn’t want to be in the water with. Sea squirts & nudibranchs are a different story…

Small ones corralled & waiting for spots.

The larger ones are needing a bit of foot work before dry time. This batch is sporting thicker tentacles. I figure they might hold up better during shipping and gallery handling. Looking forward to adding fun bright colors to their bodies.

Our bathroom remodel might regain momentum! Having spent over a year with only one bathroom (when your house is supposed to have two) has been different.  The remodel has been at a stand still for the past 3 months. Next weekend the bathtub is scheduled to be installed and finally out of my studio space. Yippee! However, this means ceramic production needs to push into gear since I took over the empty space back in December. There were two orders placed last weekend for a cereal/soup bowl set and a rice bowl set. Money motivates projects! It would be nice to complete the bowls before moving back into the cold garage.

Last Friday I finally got cranking on the pug print edition. I produced 30 good prints that day. Not too shabby & my wrists still work!  Looking forward to getting dog prints up on Etsy next week.

A donation due date is quickly approaching for for The Arts Center’s annual Chocolate Fantasy.  The gallery curator would like something in the botanical print/ papercut area. Currently, I have nothing in the requested $300 range. Maybe a trio of  hand-colored block prints of local wildflowers? Nothing like a due date to push progress along!

I’ll let ya know where I end up with projects on Friday.

One problem, I hadn’t really noticed a major defect in the paper until mounted. How did I miss that?

Since there is still time, I will probably play around with another one today. Plus I’m still trying to figure out how I really want the colors to look. This was a nice start.  The Hosho paper wicks water easily which can be a problem. Colors like to bleed outside the lines. Yikes!

The second print, another favorite, Camas. This plant happens to be found throughout the Pacific Northwest, but beyond that I don’t know. It was part of the staple diet for Native Americans living in the Willamette Valley. One of the local tribes, the Kalapuya, would harvest the root, pound it & dry it into a flour like substance. The plant lives in wet areas and drainage zones known as swales. I don’t have any on my property, but there is a good stand in my neighbors backyard. I just hope he doesn’t destroy them with all the lawn cutting. Maybe I need to transplant a few…

The Camas & Shooting Star prints will be hand colored. Time for watercolor research to start! I’ve been contemplating Dr. Ph. Martin’s watercolor inks but have not tried them out. A trip to an art shop might be in store for today.

Maria, you are one step closer to getting your print!

Materials: Hosho paper & Daniel Smith oil based etching ink

We were fortunate, here in the Willamette Valley, to witness a stunning sunsets on Christmas Eve. We were traveling to Eugene for the family crab feed and I actually had the camera (amazing cause I always forget). Dave managed to find a couple of good pull-offs along Peoria Rd.  The hills are part of the coast range with Mary’s peak topping out at 4,000 ft (highest point in rt of image).

Beautiful! Wish you could have been there…

Happy Holidays!

I had a few side emails from friends & family wondering how the bowls turned out. Nothing exploded in the kiln, which is a good thing! They were plopped into the kiln on the damp side after glazing. Those muffled thuds must have come from the neighbors house, not my garage. This is all a learning experience that will get tweaked a tad more with each batch to come. Color intensity was lost with exception of the blue. I need to apply the underglazes evenly & thicker for more intense color. The overglaze changed the maroon & cinnamon quite a bit. More experiments to come including one to really check the clay shrinkage. Part of the bowls should head out the door today.

It’s a nice feeling to know pieces of me are heading out into the world. Some of the dog prints will also leave the house today. Last night I spent time packaging an Emma print order in addition to  Evelyn’s Tree  for family distribution. A Japanese paper order arrived yesterday so I can jump back into finishing editions.

This week an invitation to show at a Corvallis venue arrived thanks to artist friend Julia Lont. Nice! Yikes! I have a few ideas popping thru my brain but it has to be ready by the beginning of the year. Guess I’ll have to pull out the botanical prints (shooting star & camas) for the job and maybe a dog print? Cut paper botanical silhouettes? All of the above? We shall see!