PRINTING "YOUNG PINES"

Printing the "YOUNG PINES" woodcut this week! Edition of 100 prints, coming right up! Still a chance to pre-order on our site & get on board for the first mass mailing. Buy an original print HERE!

FINAL COLOR FOR "OVERLOOK"

Since our first unveiling of the drawing on the key block & the introduction of pre-order in late August of 2014, we have worked steadily on the "OVERLOOK" print, designing, drawing, and carving each of the five 44" x 28" blocks.

After weeks of proofing & refining and remixing & reproofing & re-refining again and again, color proofing is finished! The print has changed a lot and in really great ways! 

We now introduce the "OVERLOOK" Woodcut Print in color! Printed from 5 blocks on 46" x 30" Okawara paper. Limited Edition. On pre-order currently, set to rise after the publication of the edition in January. (See the full print on our site!)

"OVERLOOK" is an expansive landscape lush with vibrant color and vivid patternwork. Intricate in every way, fabulously attentive to detail. The print shows a outdoor landscape that plays with scale as it rises from top to bottom from a dense forest woodland to fields and up into foothills, mountains, and finally a voluptuously clouded sky topped with a glowing blue gradient.

The "OVERLOOK" looks amazing as a single vertical piece but can also be matched up to the edges of itself to create a long, scroll-like vista of infinite size!

Available for purchase on our site HERE.

Or follow the whole making process as it continues to evolve in the printing of the edition HERE.

"OVERLOOK" WOODCUT IN COLOR

The latest color proof of the "OVERLOOK" woodcut. Still in progress, one more round of edits and we should be there! Stay tuned & join up to our mailing list on our website for details!

FAVORITE FRAMES

Some shots of the "DAISY BOUQUET" woodcut on Kitakata paper. Paper size is 20" x 16", the artwork is printed from 2 woodblocks. Framed here in pickled maple with spacers & museum glass. (This is how we typically frame our prints for exhibition, with the hand-printed paper displayed object-like in a simple and elegant hardwood frame. Walnut & pickled maple are our current favorite woods!)

MAKING "OVERLOOK" BLUE SKIES

Moving info from one "OVERLOOK" woodblock to another "OVERLOOK" woodblock (through transfer--printing from one block to another). Once this dries, we'll draw & carve the final details of the expansive blue sky and be ready to roll!!!

5 total woodblocks make the "OVERLOOK" woodcut, a huge print-in-progress we're about to wrap up that we've been working on on-and-off for the past 3 years. 

We'll be updating the print's webpage with new proof pictures as we get them, but you can get an idea of the current direction of the print HERE or access all of our in-progress shots to date HERE. 

"LOG" WOODCUT PRINT

O, the magic of the forest! The final "LOG" prints are delicate & lovely, with colors harmonious and peaceful, yet blazing and alive! The print has an otherworldly glow, radiating a life pulse in its careful combination of wild patterns & electric pastels. So happy that this image has finally made its way into being!

The cheerfully colored print is a rumination on the cycle of life. The "LOG" supports an intricate and beautiful fern and fungal ikebana, all growing from the decay of the severed tree limb. The fleeting beauty of the smaller growing organisms is fed by the death of the sturdier tree. 

Limited edition prints are HERE!

THE NEW "LOG" IN COLOR!

Introducing the new "LOG" woodcut in vivid, wild, glowing color! Printing is going so smooth & the print itself is looking so dreamy. Delightful!

4 woodblocks make "LOG", each an impressed layer of woodgrain color. (See all of the blocks here.)
Printed on 16" x 20" Natural Kitakata Paper. Edition of 100. 

In joy, we're extending the earlybird intro rate until Monday (4/26)! Last chance for "LOG" special!

SNEAK PEEK RUBBING

The paper was a bit small, but it's neat to see how the image is shaping up! Once this key block is carved in full, we'll be moving on to making color blocks. Excited to add patterns and shape beyond the key in the colors! Special limited time pre-order is up on our site HERE.

NEW! "LOG" WOODCUT

Just released for special pre-order!
Here's the "LOG" woodcut!

PINK! MAMA BEARS!

Limited number of copies from the 1st edition of "MAMA BEAR" are up for grabs in our online shop! Happy Holidays! (And remember, every online purchase through 12/25 is gifted a FREE SURPRISE PRINT!)

THE GIANT "OVERLOOK" IN PROGRESS

The elaborate detailing of the "OVERLOOK" woodcut, 2 years in the making so far. We've been drawing & carving on this block as we worked on many other prints over the past couple years, and are so excited to be nearing completion on this key block! 

The "OVERLOOK" print will be a color print, sized approximately 28" x 46". It will probably be a bleed print, with the image spilling off the edges of the paper (like "THE MOON"). The sky, to be drawn and carved only in the color blocks, will add additional height to the finished vertical print.

THE "OVERLOOK" WOODCUT

Introducing the "OVERLOOK" woodcut! We're nearly finished with the key block drawing (we've been working on & off for 2 years on this drawing!) and finally feel that the moment is right to start talking about this new work in progress.In "OVERLOOK", a dense forest huddles tight, with groves expanding outwards, upwards, growing ever further away. The trees move with the motion of a wind, or not; some are rigid & straight, some rustling & reaching. At the middle of the print, the treeline dips down and spreads up and out into a great stretch of rolling fields and forests. Groves suggestively march across the earth, nomadic, in packs made cloudlike by the abstraction of distance. In the fields, we see mankind's organized presence. At the top of the block, which will be capped with some glorious sky in the color blocks, is a distant wrinkle of mountains. Triangles of pine forests and the rounded domes of leafy trees pepper the hillsides. Layer upon layer of undulating pattern builds intensity in the "OVERLOOK" image. The suggestion of infiniteness will be further expanded by the print's ability to meet itself seemlessly at the edges like an eternal 'wallpaper'. An ever stretching vista! We will probably exhibit the finished piece first as a diptych. But it can be singular, or a triptych, or an entire walls worth of loping, abundant wilderness.We have just released the print for pre-order HERE.  We think it will be a real cornerstone in the Tugboat Printshop collection.Did we mention it will be in color? More soon!

THE GOLDEN "MOTH" PRINT!

Golden patternwork shimmers across the unfolded yellow wings of the new "MOTH" woodcut. Emerging into the path of flame, the "MOTH" is ablaze like jewelry tilted to shine in the sun. 

"MOTH" is printed from 2 woodblocks (this one & this one) onto 16" x 22" Okawara Paper. Edition of 100 prints, available exclusively in our shop HERE.

Production on this print will start in the coming week. Be one of the first to get this print by placing an order now for delivery post-production when prints are dry & ready to go!

"SNAKE VINE" WOODCUT

The new "SNAKE VINE" woodcut is now available for a pre-order of sorts! Happy 1st day of Spring!

"SNAKE VINE" is a 11" x 20.5" color woodcut printed from three hand-drawn and carved blocks (of birch plywood) by team Tugboat (Paul and Valerie). Printed on Natural Kitakata Paper in a limited edition of 200 prints. Prints will ship post-production, the week of April 5th, 2013. Visit our online shop for details!