Alas, winter in Chicago!
After 14 years of living in the SF Bay area, we are enduring our second Chicago winter, acclimating to this harsh, harsh cold. One of the strange things I noticed when the weather dropped into the negatives is that the birds disappeared. I could see their little tracks, but the birds themselves were nowhere to be found, not in the air flying or in the trees nesting. Even the chirping stopped. I made this burned wood engraving as I wondered where they all went.
Our scene opens on the 10,000th day in a row of below-freezing temperatures. Still, some charms are to be found like the sweet tracks of birds in the snow. But where are the birds?!?
The scene is drawn in pencil on an 8” x 8” wood panel.
And the lines are burned into the wood with a woodburning tool that heats up to…
1000 degrees of scorching hell-fire!!!
After the lines are carefully burned into the panel, shading begins.
And a border is created. Milk paints, carefully calibrated and mixed from dried milk proteins and pigments are slowly applied by hand with tiny paintbrushes.
When the entire scene is painted, it is cleaned up a bit with the burning pen and…voilà! A completed burned wood engraving, finished in milk paint. Still…where are the mysterious birds of winter and why do we only see their tracks?
I create burned wood engravings that combine my love of the textures and patterns found in nature with a deep interest in the unconscious world of dreams, symbols and mythic folklore. 