Number and sign

I spent a good part of my day at the dining room table. I was signing limited edition prints of a Climax geared locomotive. The prints are to be sold in an effort to raise money to restore the locomotive. I donated my time and the rights of the drawing.

As I sat signing the 200 prints many memories came back to me of when I first started my art career. It was back around 1979 that I produced my first limited edition prints which were a series of five old barns. I had done the five original drawings and then had the prints done. There were 200 of each print. I signed them at our dining room table. I remember commenting to my mother-in-law about how there was $40,000 dollars sitting on the table (the retail value of those prints) She smiled and shared some wisdom with me. Her brief comment was "They are only worth that when you sell them." It was her way of reminding me to not count the money until it was in my hand. The truth was that I only got half that $20.00 each when I sold them wholesale to the galleries. I also had to buy the gas to drive around and deliver them plus all of the other costs involved. Some of that edition sold out but I still have a few of those prints to this day. My mother-in-law was very correct with her comment.

Over the years we produced more than 130 editions of prints, meaning I numbered and signed many thousands of prints. They helped us make a good living for many years. If you are interested in buying a copy of the limited edition print contact the BC Forest Discovery Centre.

Golden view

One of the nicer aspects of our work is that our studio and workshop is in our backyard. The daily commute is always only a three hundred foot walk to the south. We arranged the buildings on our property to best take advantage of the gorgeous and inspiring views. The mountain is always changing with the light, weather, and seasons. This evening as I was out doing chores in the backyard, the view was brilliant with the mountain trees just starting to show a tinge of fall color. - especially visible in the golden hour of the setting sun.

Wood Magic - coming soon

I love wood although we seldom build our projects using that medium. Instead we carve concrete or other durable materials to look like wood. This means I am always on the lookout for cool wood grains we can emulate in our work. Wherever I go, I am constantly taking pictures of interesting woodgrains I find for reference. When we use our CNC router to create signs and features we also incorporate the wood textures into that work. This is done by using modified or created images of woodgrains. The 3D routing program would read the images and then create a digital file to create a dimensional version of the image on the routed piece of material. When we did workshops our students would always ask if our material was available for their use. Eventually, after many requests I assembled a varied collection of proven bitmaps to use with the routing programs. This eclectic accumulation was marketed through our website.

I've had plenty of feedback through the years from many who use these files and the overwhelming request was for a wood bitmap collection. For quite some time I have been working on a new collection of purely wood textures. Some are heavily modified images from my wood photographic reference file. Others are custom built images to be used for just this purpose. The collection will include modifier bitmaps to allow the woods to be easily and controllably bent, twisted or warped inside the routing program. The assortment is now of sufficient number to package them up and release them to market. I have another day or two at most of work complete the task. It will be called WOOD MAGIC and it will be officially launched next week. Here's a sampling...