words + pictures from the studio of Joan Colbert
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Oh, the holidays – even they are fraught with pretty poisons! The crow sits patiently under the mistletoe, Viscum album, in Biding Time – hoping for a kiss? Among the mistletoe lore and legend this riddle (author unknown) caught my fancy:
a riddle
I lived my life between the worlds
Neither earth nor sky would call me child
The birds were my companions
The wind and rain my mentors
Daily I grew in power and strength
‘Til snatched out of time by the trickster.
answer: mistletoe
Tags: as potent as a charm, crow, linocut, mistletoe, printmaking, raven, relief print
Took a break from malevolent botanicals to print up some book-themed cards for The Learned Owl in Hudson, Ohio. Featuring an owl that is both wise and whimsical, cards will be available individually and in sets.
Tags: books, linocut, owl, printmaking, relief print
Three of the prints in the As Potent as a Charm exhibit will feature common landscape plants (see perilous plantings for line drawings) who keep their toxicity well hidden. The proof print above is of a Rhododendron in A Deceptive Welcome.
The block in progress shows the ubiquitous Yew, Taxus baccata, in Pleasant Valley; Oleander, Nerium oleander, guards the gate in Be Still.
Tags: as potent as a charm, crow, linocut, Nerium oleander, oleander, printmaking, raven, relief print, rhododendron, Taxus baccata, yew
There is nothing like a carton of postcards to bring reality into focus: As Potent as a Charm will open in just a month!
Tags: as potent as a charm, linocut, printmaking, relief print, the box gallery
There is a latecomer to the Solanaceae family prints – the group of five has expanded to six. The ‘table’ prints can now form a triptych, with the addition of Deceitful Charm. This piece includes a sphinx moth fluttering around a mysterious pairing of Jimson Weed, Datura stramonium, and Chinese Lantern, Physalis alkekengi.
Tags: as potent as a charm, Chinese Lantern plant, Datura, linocut, printmaking, relief print, Solanaceae
Fanfare, please . . . Angel’s Trumpet, Brugmansia suaveleons, is finally printed and ready to be framed for inclusion in my upcoming exhibit, As Potent as a Charm. The fanfare because the sketches were complete in August!
Tags: angel's trumpet, as potent as a charm, Brugmansia, linocut, poison, printmaking, relief print
Three prints from the ‘pod’ series were recently loaned to the Akron Community Foundation. Each features a linocut print within a woodcut of a pod from the Chinese Lantern plant.
left to right: Peas + Pod, Skeleton, Lantern Plant
Many thanks to Chris Miller for the invitation – along with pick-up, delivery and installation!
image: Lantern Plant, woodcut/linocut
Tags: Chinese Lantern plant, linocut, printmaking, relief print, woodcut
Foxglove
Digitalis purpurea
“The operation of this herb, internally taken, is often violent, even in small doses: it is best therefore not to meddle with it, lest the cure should end in the churchyard.”
Nicholas Culpeper (1616 – 1654)
Tags: as potent as a charm, digitalis, foxglove, linocut, printmaking, relief print
Making leaf prints at last week’s workshop was inspiring, even for the instructor! This Castor Bean, Ricinus communis, leaf was printed with oil base ink on mulberry hosho.
Tags: as potent as a charm, castor bean, leaf print, printmaking, relief print, ricinus communis
