I used to travel every year to Siesta Key, Florida. Two weeks of unbelievable peace, soft winds, "hanging" in the salt water. Hanging in the ocean is a unique experience. Instead of floating horizontally, one simply relaxes perpendicularly in the water and stays with no effort for indeterminate lengths of time.

Selby Gardens is nearby in Sarasota, a paradise of endless orchids and unimagined varieties of tropical flowers . I could not pass through without taking photos of the foliage. This lino cut is based on one of my photos. The flowers on this plant are the cup-like images near the bottom. The hold water for the plant. Isn't nature wonderful.

Lino cuts are a great way to achieve maximum drama with minimum effort. Since they don't require a press to run, (burnishing with a wooden spoon works fine), they can be rendered on the spot in a brief drawing on the block, and then cut and run later. Daubigny, the early Barbizon painter used a similar method on hand-sized prepared copper plates, drawing into the ground. Then he would run them off as references for larger oil paintings. He would give the original prints then, to friends as gifts. Nice gift.

The Elephant Book

Crafts are my vacation. They require a different set of tools from painting, and book arts are one my favorite ways to relax. It's certainly not the best thing I do, and never will be. Careful calculations are beyond me. No left side of brain.

The elephant print seen here was a double print. First a pattern using foam sheets to cut the patterns from, was laid onto black paper. Then overprinted with silver paint elephants. The whole process is so simply, all relief, but looks way more complex. (The secret of crafts. The book pages are torn German Etching print paper. I made 6 books, total during the week I spent at Arrowmont in the Smokey Mountains. Didn't get into the mountains, but the campus is very beautiful on its own. Some of the pieces utilize handmade papers that I made some time ago. I always wondered what I'd use them for. I've got to quit collecting stuff.