A Poem For A Tuesday

Face to Face in Rome

by Constance Brewer

I wander Via Flaminia,

weave my way deep into

the guts of Bella Roma,

turn at random until I leave

this idle March behind.

Citizens vanish, fading two

by one until I am alone

on a narrow-cobble street

receding into ancient alley.

I stretch my hands apart

as if crucified, brush white-

washed stone left and right,

trail my fingers over

the persistence of centuries.

A final turn. The path dead

ends. Grimy brick towers

over head high enough

to enforce my insignificance.

Before me, in the center

of the oft-mortared wall,

three bullet holes.

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No Cookies for Gabriele

But... here, have a Roman. He's not quite done being painted yet, but a half-baked Roman is better than no Roman.

Roman Boar Print

In between removing water-soaked carpet from the mini flood last week that soaked my basement, fixing a hole in the roof (which reminded me I hate heights), I managed to get the Year of the Boar prints done. Nothing like a postage increase to give you motivation.


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Color 1 - Burnt Siena


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Color 2 - Alizarian Crimson



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Color 3 - Violet + white



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Final Color - Black

All things considered, I didn't care for the paper. A little too lightweight for my tastes. Once I conquer my registration problems, I'll give Moku Hanga another shot. I did the moku hanga methods on this print, except for using lino instead of wood.

Now For Something Completely Different

I should be writing. I'm on a roll, things are flowing, good guys are suffering, demons are demoning... but I also have a print to get out. Luckily, I can divide my evening between carving the print and writing. Oh, and editing a poem. Sleep is overrated anyhow.

Since this is The Year Of The Boar, I am doing a printmaking exchange through the Baren Forum. The theme? Year Of The Boar. I've done Year of the Dog (2006) and Year of the Horse (2002).

The idea is to make a bunch of little postcards on the theme, and mail them off to other printmakers around the world who sign up for the exchange. After playing with different ideas, I ended up with a Roman Boar from a mosaic that I liked.

First step was to sketch what I wanted.


I did some clean up in Painter, dropping out the gray tones and increasing contrast, then printed out the sketch to use as a basis for carving my lino block. Someday I will get braver and delve back into Moku Hanga, but not this print. I'm comfortable with lino blocks and like the graphic representation they produce.

Next, I did a color sketch to see how I wanted the final print to look.
Depending on the inks I have, I can approximate the colors. Not sure about the purple, but I'll figure something out.



I carved out the first part of the boar. I decided to do a color reduction print - no guts, no glory. This means I will work from light to dark on the print, overlaying colors as I go, and carving away the things I want to stay the previous color. I need to make 65 prints, so a reduction print may be stupid on my part, but I want to give it a shot. In the first block, I carved away everything I want to remain white or the paper color. The boar is facing backwards, when I print him, he'll turn around the way I want him to face. For a spatial dyslexic, printmaking can be nervewracking at times - backwards is correct and letters get carved in reverse. Hence the layout before hand. Saves me a lot of miscarved blocks.










Next time: Paper, First color prints, block two.