Blue Chisel Prints

Friday Memories!

On a May Friday ten years ago — Friday the 13th — my husband Roland and I said our goodbyes to our lives in the Vancouver area and set out on a year-long road adventure across North America. West coast to east coast and back again, through the southern half of the USA.
We travelled in a small truck camper, keeping to the back roads and camping in wilder, more remote places as much as possible.
Before we left, we kept seeing a heron, randomly in our back yard or flying overhead. Herons weren’t common in our area so R did a bit of research and discovered that, in the lore of most indigenous peoples, seeing a heron before any big journey or expedition signalled great good fortune. We named our journey the Heron Road and yes, the heron delivered.

Once we got back, and settled here in the Kootenays of BC, I began on a series of linocuts celebrating some of the stand-out places we found. The series as such is finished, though I might add a new piece now and then. And, though I don’t generally like reposting older work, on this ten-year anniversary of our Heron Road, maybe it’s worth showing the original set again, one by one. For a more detailed story behind each one, you can check out the Heron Road series on my site.

This is the first one. Boundary Lake. We never imagined, back then, how close to home this place would end up being.

Happy Monday! 🙂

I feel somewhat broken today, after yesterday’s gardening adventures: pickaxing a row of thyme shrubs which didn’t quite survive this past winter. Who knew thyme roots spread out and weave together underground into the crazy thing I had to deal with! No, gardening is not in my blood.

Anyway. My drawing for today. Vrbice, Czech Republic. Wine country. My parents bought and rebuilt an old farmhouse in Vrbice when they were in their 60’s, all on their own, and spent six months of the year there for about 15 years after that. We visited once and loved it. So different from the raw and rugged beauty here.

Happy Monday! 🙂

This is another drawing I began years ago and one that went through way too many stages.
I have a strong affinity for stories about the spirits of early pagan religions. As a kid growing up in the Czech Republic, fables about water sprites, wild men of the mountains, wood nymphs etc. were fodder for my imagination.
A Polish friend suggested I should try to work that into my art somehow and I love that idea. But, so far, my efforts disappoint me.
This drawing isn’t quite there yet but I’ve decided to let it sit as is.

It’s amazing how long clearing a section of the block can take, even if you only end up with this tiny pile of lino bits.

Happy Monday! 🙂 And may it be a good day, wherever you are.

This is an older drawing and it went through a lot of changes before it got to this version. And now that I look at it, it would work really well as a linocut I think. Add it to the list of ‘when I get around to it’.

In any case, the inspiration came during the summer of 2021: a summer of wild fires raging across much of the province.
Here, during that time, with ashes landing randomly on the patio table and the sky and sun an unsettling orange, I took the photo for this illustration.

Happy Monday! 🙂

The hummingbirds are starting to show up, a robin is building a nest in my carport, and Spring vibes are here again.
I’ve been busy with stuff that kept me away from printmaking for the couple of weeks but yesterday, at last, I got the first two colours down on a new reduction print.

For today, here’s a drawing I finished recently. It’s my tribute to a man I never met, but one who definitely enriched my life and those of many others. I started working on it after Bert Boily passed away about a month ago.

Who was Bert Boily? Well…kind of a local legend in this little neighborhood I live in.

Twenty years ago, Bert B. was diagnosed with cancer. And, instead of sitting down and waiting for it to claim him, he started building hiking trails through the local hillsides. Clearing boulders; making paths. Several of them. Trails I still hike on, almost daily.

Did he slow down the progress of his cancer by doing so? Maybe, maybe not. I’d like to think so.

Happy Monday! 🙂

The hummingbirds are starting to show up at the feeder, a robin is building a nest in my carport, and Spring vibes are here again.
I’ve been busy with stuff that kept me away from printmaking for the couple of weeks but yesterday, at last, I got the first two colours down on a new reduction print.

For today, here’s a drawing I finished recently. It’s my tribute to a man I never met, but one who definitely enriched my life and those of many others. I started working on it after Bert Boiley passed away about a month ago.

Who was Bert Boiley? Well…kind of a local legend in this little neighborhood I live in.

Twenty years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer. And, instead of sitting down and waiting for it to claim him, Bert started building hiking trails through the local hillsides. Clearing boulders; making paths. Several of them. Trails I still hike on, almost daily.

Did he slow down the progress of his cancer by doing so? Maybe, maybe not. I’d like to think so.

Happy Monday! 🙂

Today’s drawing was inspired by the very last place R and I camped at, in the fall of 2021, almost at the end of the camping season.
We were in Nakusp, this region’s prime wild mushroom hunting area, hoping to find some chanterelles.
He was already sick but we didn’t know it yet. Just a sore back, he said.
In the evenings walked the shoreline of Arrow Lake, all alone and discussing deep stuff — subjects dusk in such a place tends to call forth.
So the drawing carries mixed emotions along with memories I wouldn’t trade for anything.

One year later and just in time.

I may be a lot of things but, clearly, fast may not be one of them. I took the photo which inspired this print last year, in early April, and planned the print out shortly after.
And then other ideas came along and pulled at me and the block, all ready to go, sat. And sat and sat, while I put my focus elsewhere.
Finally, with Spring slowly colouring the hillsides around me again as I walk through them, this print is done. Feels pretty good.

Happy Monday! 🙂

Today’s drawing, another nod to the arrival of Spring, is an old one and based on an even older version. I originally drew it as birthday card for my father and it was a reference to an old Czech pop song he used to like to sing when I was really small.

Even this second version is several years old now.

It’s Spring!!!

Even though nothing’s really changed, it’s still cloudy and supposed to rain most of the day, it’s an inner thing isn’t it? It *feels* like renewal.

A good day to show a snippet of my latest reduction print, inspired, again, by the local hillside I take my dogs to regularly. I hope to finish it this weekend.

I planned the print and drew the sketch last spring so there’s a bit of synchronicity.