Canary Clay Finds His Wings

This weekend I stopped by the Stumptown Comics Fest to see my friends Graham, Stumptown Underground and of course the IPRC. As I was making my way through the participants I came across Atrox Comics and Beastlies, who make comics using 3D sculpted figures of the monstrously cute kind.

I bought one of the smallest figurines, dubbed him Canary Clay, and promptly took him on a walk around his new neighborhood.

Canary Clay surveys his new neighborhood.
Canary Clay surveys his new 'hood in appropriate protective tree-climbing headwear.
Canary Clay sits on the edge of my neighbor's bird bath.
The neighbor's bird bath got some use.
Canary Clay converses with his new friend, Rhonda the Flamingo.
Canary Clay makes a new friend, Rhonda the Flamingo. He invited her back to the bird bath but she would have none of it.
Canary Clay rests in some foliage and wonders how Mini Cooper got ahold of his proprietary color.
Canary Clay rests in some foliage and wonders how Mini Cooper got a hold of his proprietary color.

Mustache Finger Once Removed

In preparation for attending my friend Michael’s beard art show “Keep Portland Beard” at the Tribute Gallery, I created this little accessory so I would fit in. Michael writes the blog Beard Revue, so he was the perfect person to curate such a show. Portland is full of the hip sort that sport facial hair with varying levels of irony, so a take on the mustache finger was just what I needed to blend into the crowd!

Mustache on a stick.
I present you the mustache on a hand on a stick or "stick of irony".
A finger mustache on a cut-out paper hand.
How to be an ironic hipster and ironic at the same time.

Registration Print Process

Em Space, the local book arts center I’m involved with, put on their first anniversary show recently and asked members to submit a small printed piece so we could send a Petite Print Suite collection as a thank-you to people who had helped the organization in its first year. The theme was “print terminology” and I chose registration (basically, lining up two or more colors when printing, usually using a guide such as a X or dots to align colors). Little did I know that registration would be the least of my worries when producing 100 copies of the bar-4 card.

I chose to do a linoleum cut because 1) I am frugal, 2) I thought it would be easy, and 3) I had waited too long to get a plate made. I settled on my design and started carving away…

Linoleum cut of USA with plus sign in the middle.
Carve your linoleum block backwards. It should take you two tries or less.
My linoleum had a dead spot in it, right around where Oregon should be.

To compensate for the dead spot (I like Oregon, it shouldn’t get the shaft because of some printing problems) I used torn newsprint to build up the area underneath the blank spot, so when the paper made contact with the linoleum block the surface receiving ink would be even, thus giving Oregon and the Western US its full due. Continue reading “Registration Print Process” →