Category Archives: illustration

This is one of a series of one-of-a-kind prints made for the artist book, “Means of Transportation That Don’t Go Anywhere.” Each copy of the book has my page with a unique drawing of a different spring-mounted animal and the wood type phrase, “Oh, hell yes.” Ostriches, zebras, and penguins all have strong graphic characters and made for nice images. Of the 16 variations, the unicorn was most popular, the mermaid was most disturbing, and the semi-inert slug was most amusing.

Here’s a recent print, made this fall on an antique Chandler & Price platen press. I spent the summer fuming over the BP Gulf Oil Spill, watching footage of oil destroying coastal ecosystems and waterways where I have lived and worked. To focus some of that energy, and to work with some lovely imagery, I decided to make a print about the tree-dwelling goats of Dauphin Island. I carved the illustration block to look very formal, like Victorian natural history texts or medieval woodcuts of fantastic creatures. When I set the antique lead type for the text and rule, I maintained that pre-modern sensibility with centered text, serifed type, and non-standard spellings, abbreviations, and capitalization. I’ll include more details about letterpress printmaking, relief-cutting, and setting type in future posts.