Happy Canada Day

Today I thought we would celebrate Canada's birthday with some irreverent and reverent printmakers.


Zombie Beaver screenprint by Halifax printmaker Geordan Moore (a.k.a. the quarrelsome yeti).


Ode to a Guitar by Peterborough's Jeffrey Macklin of Jackson Creek Press. This is his tribute to Canadian Martin Tielli, lead guitarist for The Rheostatics, and his hand-painted Ibanez double neck 6/12 string electric guitar,with a "never quite presented idea" for the new Canadian flag designed by Group of Seven founder A.Y. Jackson (similar to but distinct from Lester B. Pearson's Pennant).

The Rheostatics made a whole album inspired by the Group of Seven which is quite lovely. This is just a taste I found on-line.



You can't get more Canadian than that.

Lastly, a screenprint which makes me nostalgic. It was in a book of Canadian art my parents had which I would pore over as a child, and shows streetcars, the red rocket, as they were when I was small. I always loved this image.



"Streetcar Headdress" (1972) by Charles Pachter, silkscreen, 60.96 cm x 76.2 cm (courtesy Charles Pachter).

I hope you have a great Canada Day. I plan to spend mine with my better half, whom, incidentally, I first met by a moose sculpture by Charles Pachter

Riding the tortoise

'Tortoise Ride' by Meg Hunt

Virginia Frances Sterrett, illustration for Old French Fairy Tales (1920) by the Contesse de Segur (via 50watts). The story illustrated is that of Blondine, a princess lost in a forest due to the actions of her wicked step-mother, where amongst other adventures, she meets a great tortoise who offers her protection and to lead her out of the woods so long as she will sit on her back silently, without asking a single question, for six months. Another French fairytale has a princess who rides a tortoise- Babiole, but only when she has been cursed and turned into a (well-educated) monkey.

'A Monkey Riding on a Tortoise' (1821) by Katsushika Hokusai

Which makes me think of Monkey, Sun Wukong riding the giant tortoise during his epic Journey to the West, and then I am reminded that I promised you more of Awazu's turtles, some time ago. Here are but a few:

'QUARTIER PARCO -A' (1973), Advertizing Poster, Silk-screen by Kiyoshi Awazu

(1978) Public postet, offset, by Kiyoshi Awazu

(1980) Public postet, offset, by Kiyoshi Awazu

(1975) by Kiyoshi Awazu

Lunar Calendars

Every year I think I should make a calendar, but I never do... though I do tend to gather a bunch of proofs of my prints to make a calendar just for our home. This year I went so far as to work on a design of a lunar calendar. I think that there is too much information to easily capture in a relief print (unless made on an impractical scale) and that this is something better suited to screenprinting or digital prints. Further, the more I worked on it, the more convinced I became that this was something I should be programming, rather than making by hand.

Here are a few of the lovely 2012 lunar calendars I was able to find.


Lunar Calendar 2012 Poster
Silkscreen over Black paper 240 g/m² 48x66cm
Made with programming using Nodebox
Lunar Calendar, Moon Calendar, Calendário Lunar
by Brazilian designer Dimitre Lima, available here


Lunar Calendar 2012
This is a visualization of the lunar calendar for 2012.
columns = months, rows = days.
© Copyright 2011 Michael Paukner.
This doesn't appear to be in his shop right now, but you should check it out (and his photostream) anyway, for lovely design and sciencey goodness!



This calendar on www.ghin.co.uk tries to do it all:

Calendar 2012 is a Gregorian calendar with, moon phases and the Chinese Lunar-solar Calendar integrated, layed out as a circular color wheel. The new additional Chinese calendar is in simplified Chinese.

This years edition of the color wheel calendar marks the End of the Mayan long count. The Maya Long count is the most sophisticated calendar created so far. It consists of different length cycles that makes up the long count which is 5126 years. This long count ends on the winter solstice 21st of December 2012.

Calendar 2012 includes:

- Hebrew, Chinese, Hindu, Buddhist, Gregorian and Islamic year count.
- Fully integrated lunar phase cycle for each day.
- Simplified Chinese Calendar

This calendar is actually from 2011, but you can get the letterpress 2012 version here from lizardpress on Etsy

starlight

sonic youth - 4 color screen print - 25"x13" - july 2009

Check out the portfolio of Massachusetts printmaker Dan McCarthy!


guiding light - 4 color screen print - 24"x16" - january 2010


helms/dino in the woods - 2 color screen print 26x10

{via Printeresting}

It's all fun and games, until...

Check out the darkly beautiful work of Ericailcane.

Lepus timidus- puntasecca 35x50 cm, black ink on 320 gm, magnani avana paper,ed.ltd to 21, 2007




Funny games- puntasecca 25x35cm, black ink on 280gsm, magnani natural white paper , ed. ltd to 22, 2007





You will find etching, screen prints, drawings, wall paintings and more on the site. Also, I like the set-up; more intuitive than many artists' online portfolios.