I used to do a lot of woodcuts. Woodcuts are a kind of block printing, where you start with wood (usually basswood, or something else of medium hardness) and then carve away everything that you want to be white in the final print, leaving behind everything you want to appear black. Once the carving is done, ink your print and press it to a piece of paper, and you get a cool looking block print. The same thing can be done with linoleum, styrofoam, or potatoes.

Based on Googling my personal website, a design firm in Seattle recently contacted me to do a new series of woodcuts. Their client, a housing development in Washington state, wanted a squirrel mascot. So over the course of the past week, in addition to preparing for the fall semester, I busted out the chisels and ink roller. Here's the squirrel that I prepared for them:

But carving the squirrel reawakened this particular creative urge in me. I like doing woodcuts! And I like thinking up my own material to carve. So in my spare time, I started this fellow, finishing him up yesterday afternoon as the sun dipped low in the western sky:

He's sort of a juvenile, freaked-out, overweight, embryonic, stressy tyrannosaur. With an overbite. I like him because, artistically, he combines my interest in cartoons with my interest in block printing. (And of course, my interest in geology!)

Labels: art, critters, dinosaurs