Printmania starts tonight!

Well, thanks to a terrific Mother's Day present from my loving husband - a high-end, archival Epson printer - I'm making prints of some of my favorite collages.

It's been great fun deciding which ones to print among those that have been sold. And, to my great surprise, it's actually been fun to learn the ins and outs of the printer. One thing I have discovered is that the results are so detailed that images need to be scanned at a much higher resolution to really make them pop.

The first crop is for sale in the studio only for now, starting with tonight's Open Studios (6-9 p.m.). They are matted in archival mats that will fit standard frame sizes. Prices are $25 to $35.

New at Friday's open studios: collages, cards, tags and the debut of archival prints of my work

Julian Had Popped the Question But All Anna Could Think About
Was Her Order of Bacon (2012)
mixed-media collage: vintage illustrations (McCall's magazine,1937;
 Art of Food & Drink, Dover, 1974), recycled cookbook and paint sample,
 ink, watercolor. 5"x5" on archival mat board.
Price: $75 (matted), $90 (framed).

Friday night's Open Studios at Brazee Street Studios - 6-9 p.m. - offers the first look at all the new collages in the Food Colors series.

Also new in the studio: a special Father's Day card, a slew of collage tags - just finished 25 or so - and for the first time: prints! These are high-quality reproductions of collages, printed with archival inks on 100% cotton rag paper. The selection is small but will be expanding, and for now, they're available at the studio only.

Reminder: I'm on the first floor now- right across from the Brazee Street entrance and the gallery. where a delightful show is opening: Glass Woods.

Animal of the day: woman's best friend

This clever dog is from a poem about Old Mother Hubbard and her animals that was published in 1883 in the book Chatterbox For The Little Folks (John E. Potter & Co., Philadelphia). The book is one of many that was put together - without permission - from material found in the British weekly/monthly. Copyright was a tempestuous issue then, as it is now.

Animal of the day: water ballet

This is one of a series of line drawings accompanying a poem in an 1889 issue of St. Nicholas children's magazine. It is about a man in search of the unusual and he found it with "the Octopus a-waltzing with the whale, whale, whale."

Animal of the day: the elephant in the room

Illustration from St. Nicholas magazine, 1878

A few months ago, while rifling through my collection of 19th century Chatterbox and St. Nicholas magazines, I started to notice wonderful - and, sometimes, bizarre - images of animals. I hadn't paid attention to them before. But, now, as I turned the pages, they seemed to be everywhere.

I started clipping them and scanning them into the electronic archive. There was no motive behind it, other than wanting to save the images. I now have dozens and dozens of them and thought I'd share them during the next few weeks.

Meantime, an idea for them has popped into my head. But, whether that will take the form of a collage or not, well, more about that another time. For now, I just want to release them into the wild ...