Another Fish! But Not For The Reason You Think!

SPECIAL EDITION!

Several weeks ago, my wife and I had a small contest among some of our local friends and family (non-local friends and family, don't be upset!). In a move that is completely unlike us, we sent out the initials for our soon-to-be-born daughter. We had dozens of guesses for little EHC's name but only one of them was correct. The prize was a linocut of an American shad specially made for this contest. What made it great was that the winner's name is Schad and they love fish!

We also gave a print for weirdest/lamest/never-name-my-kid-that guesses. The winner here was, among many guesses Escalator Holodeck Clark. 

If you're curious, little Eva was born on Thursday afternoon. I would have put this up sooner, but, you know, new baby and all.

Gone Fishin'

Literally. I went fishing today. And also this past Saturday. I've never been particularly picky about what I catch when I go. Catfish are awesome. Bass? You know it. Shiners? Why not? But I really, really love catching bluegill. Or brim, bream, sunfish, sunnies, 'gills, panfish. They are great little fish. They are easy to catch and put up a great fight on light tackle. They also taste like someone went up into heaven, visited a restaurant intended for the greatest of saints, ordered from the chef's personal, secret menu and brought a doggie bag back home. Seriously, these are the best tasting fish in the world. Salt, pepper, breaded with flour or cornmeal (whatever), with lemon juice squeezed over them while hot. Holy mackerel. Or do I mean... Holy BLUEGILL?!?!

Anyway, we did very well at the lakes and I had a refrigerator full of bluegills. So now you know what I'm having for dinner tonight!

A beautiful little fish, who, unfortunately for him, tastes delicious.

Of Gyotaku, Real and Artificial

The number of gyotaku posts here are all out of proportion to the actual number of prints I have pulled. I am actually far more interested in making drawings of the fish than in pulling prints of them. "Ah," you say, "then why are you polluting the internet with all of your fancy fish rubbings when you could be showing us drawings?" Fair enough; here are two examples of "fish rubbings" as you so condescendingly refer to them.

This first one is perhaps a bit of a cheat - so maybe a little of your smarty pants-ness is warranted. This is a flounder that I bought for use in some of my classes (the kids don't always do so well with real fish - there are things like guts and eyeballs to consider). It's rubber. Okay!? So I made the print of my rubber fish on one side of transparent paper, painted the reverse side of the paper gold, cut the whole thing out and glued it to a fresh sheet of paper. I rather liked the result.

These lovely fish are golden shiners that I caught while fishing for bluegill. They're pretty much giant minnows. But they are very beautiful and if I had it to do again I would try to catch their color like I did here. Regardless, I think this is a successful print.

So here you are, an actual drawing of a fish. This is the prince of fishes, that most delicious of panfish, the majestic bluegill. For me, bluegill is what I call almost all of those fish that other people call brim or bream. They are quite beautiful in their own right and great fighters on light tackle.

And here we go with a little woodcut of a fish. Actually it's a tetra that I used to have in my fish tank. I often take some time to draw the fish that make it into my tanks. This one was a great model. It stayed very still for me the whole time. Probably because it was dead. That's the way it is sometimes. We artists have to be a hard-hearted lot when it comes to our fish drawings. We don't have to kill the little guys, but we must be willing to take advantage of the opportunity when it arises.

Dreams and Visions

I think I have settled on Dreams and Visions as the title for my current drawing book. (If you don't know what a drawing book is, read this.) No, I don't think I am an artistic prophet of the Romantic 19th century variety. It's just that I have spent the better part of the last year looking over the drawings that are manifesting themselves in my book and I am noticing patterns that are developing.

What patterns you ask? Well, for one thing, all sorts of stuff is leaping out of my head:

These images are in the order in which I made them. You may be noticing how there is a progression here; it's not just things popping out of my head. Well, it's at least things popping out of my head; but I believe it's more than that.

The first image is a pretty straightforward dream image, there's even a speech bubble to clue the viewer into that fact. This is cut and dried.

The following image has things literally splitting my head open and exploding out. I have a "speech" bubble telling the viewer that these things are all to be found in my books (that's a drawing of a drawing book - a sort of meta-drawing book).

In the third image, I have a flip top head. The speech bubbles are gone and the thoughts just stand on their own.

The fourth image has the things in my imagination not splitting open my head; rather, they are melding with my head as if they all have equal substance with my mind.

And then there's this two page spread. I suppose the one on the left could be a surrogate for me - it's not exactly a self portrait as it doesn't look like me. Anyway, I think it's a toss up as to wether this is a drawing of a dragon and a fish with faces on them or if it's a drawing of two faces with a dragon and a fish hitching a ride. I'm not sure myself. The visions have an equal presence as the heads. They are both concrete.

I have not shown you everything - not by a long shot, but I hope you get the idea of how what it is a particular book is about begins to reveal itself to me.

Perelandra Cross Section

This has been inordinately frustrating for me. I'm not entirely happy with it nor do I hate it. There are parts that I really like and there are parts that I hope you really don't notice. I've spent a shameful amount of time on this and I hope I'm done; we'll see what my AD says.

Frilled Shark

Frilled Shark. Watercolor on paper. Again, a weird Japanese shark that normally makes its living deep down but found its way to the surface for some reason. And, like the Chimaera, it's based on a photo.

Chimaera

Chimaera. Watercolor on paper. Maybe you've seen the photo this is based on. I think this beastie washed up on the beach after a tsunami.