Owls, Owls, Owls

         It’s time for some block prints!  Now that I’ve got a little early summer vacation between art shows, I’ve decided to update some of my notecard collections with new designs.  One of these is the “Backyard Birds” note cards, so I thought for today’s blog I’d share some relief block prints of birds by other artists.  But the first thing to catch my eye were a couple of owls, and since there’s no shortage of wonderful owl art, I’m going to set aside all the other birds and focus on owls today.

        Up first is a dark and shadowy owl by Jack Coughlin.  I’ve paired it with an owl by Helen Siegl that has a similar pose, but where Coughlin’s owl is in some dark corner, perhaps in a barn, Siegl’s is isolated without a background.  Although both of these have

wild feathers carved with lots of small strokes, Coughlin’s looks much more controlled and planned, while Siegl’s looks skritchy and rough.  This is the first piece by Coughlin I’ve come across, but you can revisit some other wood block prints by Siegl at previous posts Critters by Siegl and Crazier Critters by Siegl.

        The next owl is extremely precise and accurately detailed.  This great horned owl by Nick Wroblewsky uses multiple colors on multiple blocks.  I love how the night sky shows the grain of the wood, and how even with the level of detail, when you look closely Wroblewski’s marks still look like carving.  I shared another piece by him back at Autumnal Block Prints.

        Here's an owl is by one of my favorite current block printmakers, Mary Azarian.  This comes from her Farmer’s Alphabet, which I’ve featured on several occasions.  Here our owl gets even more scenery, in an owl’s-eye view of a small Vermont town.  The upper and lower case O’s seem particularly appropriate to evoke the owl’s round eyes and its call: Ooo oooo!  I love the variety of textures and patterns of feathers, trees, hills, and fields.  You can see a few more letters that I’ve previously posted from The Farmer’s Alphabet: A, B, D, G, H, M, X, and Z.

        Next is a collection of little owls, in a range of styles, but all with similar faces and perching postures.  The first is by another artist who’s new to this blog.  I discovered "Christophski" on Instagram, where he seems to do lots of small prints that all incorporate the little red stamp.  (There’s another owl in the same post where I saw this one, which you can visit from the link in the credits below.)  I’ve given this owl a parliament of peers from some other artists who have appeared in this blog before: Andrew Wightman and Antonio

Frasconi were both featured in the 2023 A to Z Challenge when my theme was block printed alphabets.  You can find more of their work at Animals and Fenning’s Fairy.  The fourth owl in this group is by Thomas Bewick, without whom no discussion of block-printed birds would be complete.  You can see in it why he’s considered the father of modern wood engraving for the accuracy of his observations and his use of detailed textures in shading.  The patterns that make up the branch are especially interesting.  For the full scoop on Bewick (including another of his owls!) check out Master Engraver.

        Finally, we’ll end with a dramatic owl by Christopher Wormell, another artist whose alphabets I’ve featured on numerous occasions before.  He makes excellent use of rich color in his multi-block linoleum prints.  You can do a search for him in the sidebar, or start by checking out what I shared at West Wonder.

        But that’s not all!  People have long been fascinated by owls, and they make such a great subject for art that quite a few of them have appeared on this blog before.  Be sure to click on all the links to find owls you’re sure to love by the following additional artists:

Stephen Alcorn

Anonymous Fourth Grader (styrofoam)

Neil Brigham

Anne E.G. Nydam (me!)

Joe Talirunnilik (stone)

Yoshijiro Urushibara

Scholarly owl (from 1618)

        (As for my new notecard designs which started this whole thing, there is no owl among them.  But you’ll be able to see them on my web site before long.)

[Pictures: Owl, woodcut by Jack Coughlin, 1970 (Image from Davis Museum);

Owl, wood block print by Siegl, from The Birds and the Beasts Were There, The World Publishing Company, 1963;

Owl in Cedars, woodcut by Nick Wroblewski (Image from nickwroblewski.com);

Owl, wood block print by Mary Azarian, from A Farmer's Alphabet, 1981;

Owl, rubber block print by Christophski, (Image from christophski on Instagram);

Owl, linocut by Andrew Wightman, c. 2015 (Image from AndrewWightmanPrints);

O, wood block print by Antonio Frasconi, from Bestiary, 1965;

The Female Short-Eared Owl, wood engraving by Thomas Bewick from A History of British Birds, 1979 (Image from Wikimedia Commons);

O, linoleum block print with multiple blocks by Christopher Wormell, from A New Alphabet of Animals, 2002.]

#WyrdAndWonder 2024

         Wyrd And Wonder is a month-long celebration of all things fantasy.  If you want to know more, you can find out all about the idea and about its noble and heroic hosts here.  Of course my blog is a celebration of fantasy (and block prints) not just for the month of May but all the time, which is why each year I like to make a post that points out where any intrepid travellers from Wyrd And Wonder can find prior posts that connect with this year’s various Wyrd And Wonder prompts.  So let’s dive right in!

Lists of Books

     Bite Sized Islands (Short Stories and Novellas)

            Books for Hope

            Fantasy Tales of Frank R. Stockton

     Clockwork Castle (Subgenre: Steampunk)

            Technofantasy

     The Road Less Travelled (Underrated Books and Small Press Publications)

            A Few Lesser-Known Treasures

            The Last Three Read-Alouds

          I would be remiss not to mention just a couple more lesser-known treasures that I haven’t had a chance to write posts about yet: Lumina and the Goblin King by Cari Lyn Jones and The King of Next Week by E.C. Ambrose.  The latter could also have been filed under “Bite Sized Islands” above.  The former could probably be filed under “Zone in on Comfort” below.

         I also have to mention my own books in this category!  You can see them all listed here, or read blog posts about a few particular books:

            On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination: Introduction plus An Entire Series of Posts

            Turn the Page… Open the Door… Enter the Adventure (The Extraordinary Book of Doors)

            The Cheesemonster Cometh!  (Kate and Sam and the Cheesemonster)

            Introducing: Ruin of Ancient Powers

            Kickstarter Campaign (Bittersweetness & Light)

     Dragon’s Pass (Dragons, of course!)

            Why Dragons Are Cool

            Creature Collections: Dracopedia

            Creature Collections: The More the Merrier

            Creature Collections: Encyclopedias

            Creature Collections: Artists’ Edition

            Field Guides to the Creatures of Fantasy

            More Field Guides

Information on Creatures of Fantasy

     The Fountain of Youth (Immortal Characters)

            R is for Regeneration

     Here Be Monsters (the Darker Creatures of Fantasy)

            V is for Vampirism

            U is for Undead

            D is for Demonic

            A is for Anthropophagus

            How to Summon a Giant Skeleton

            N is for Ninki Nanka

            They Run Again

            Words of the Month - Ghosts

            Gruss vom Krampus

            I Don’t Do Vampires

            Words of the Month - Things That Go Bump In the Night

     Dragon’s Pass

            W is for Wyvern

            P is for Pyrallis

            D is for Dragon

            O is for Oracle

            Kircher’s Dragons

            A Short History of Dragon Lore

Fantastic Fives: Zone in on Comfort

       The Golden Key

       Psalm for the Wild-Built and Once More Upon a Time: Books for Hope

       My list of fantasy comfort reads probably should also include

       The Lord of the Rings, suitable for Conflict Bay (Battles or Great Rivalries - something I don’t always have much interest in)

       The Phantom Tollbooth, suitable for Standalone Isle

            assorted Terry Pratchett, and… well, that’s five so I guess I should stop.  For more comfort reads you could also check out the books in my post Random Books of Kindness.

        For me, the ingredients for a good comfort read include

1. Characters I love, who are genuinely trying to do what’s right, without too much angsty whining.

2. Settings I long to be immersed in - including epic landscapes, magical palaces, mysterious libraries, enchanted gardens, and wonders to be seen all around!

3. Happy endings.

        That should be enough content to keep you busy for a while!

[Pictures: Wyrd & Wonder orange dragon by Elena Zakharchuk;

Fire on the Wind, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024 (Image from NydamPrints);

Bigger than a Breadbox, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2022 (Image from NydamPrints).]

#AtoZChallenge 2024 Reflection

          Plant a carrot, get a carrot,

          Not a Brussels sprout!

          That’s why I love vegetables:

          You know what you’re about!

        These lines from “The Fantasticks” may be true for mundane plants of the ordinary world, but as we’ve seen in my A to Z Challenge posts this year, you are very far from knowing what you’re about when it comes to the magical plants of folkore, fairy tale, and legend!  If you enjoyed this theme you can also check out a previous post on Fantasy Botany, which is mostly stuff that’s already been mentioned in this month’s A to Z, but includes additional pictures.  And speaking of the pictures, unlike my posts on creatures, I had to do a lot more work on these illustrations.  I ended up modifying or creating a number of pictures for plants that didn’t seem to be illustrated anywhere.  I had fun with that, even if it was more work.  (On the other hand, there are very few examples of my own relief block prints for this theme: just E, L, V, and W, and sort of D.  I guess I’ve been slacking on the imaginary plant art, but I do have another of mine for you today.)

        As for reflections on this year, I did manage to keep my posts manageable by limiting myself to about three or four plants per letter, and ruthlessly weeding out extras.  That meant my posts didn’t get overgrown and I kept well ahead of the alphabet in putting them together, which was certainly more pleasant.  Unfortunately, there were far fewer visitors commenting than in past years.  Perhaps magical botany just wasn’t as popular a theme, but I also think most of the blogs I was visiting were getting fewer comments, as well.  For those of you who did stop by and say hello, I certainly appreciated your company!

        I did visit an awful lot of blogs, but slowly pruned down my list over the course of the month to end with about 30.  Which is too many to post here, but a few favorites included

     The Multicolored Diary

     Finding Eliza

     The Great Raven

     How Would You Know

There were also a few blogs that I would have liked to comment on, but I was unable to post on them because they required some kind of login that I couldn’t seem to do.  That was a little frustrating, but technology does seem to like to tease me by making some difficult things possible (such as all the research I do for my posts!) while then turning around and making other simple things difficult.  So it goes.

        Usually I like to include a little extra content in my Reflections post - stuff that I couldn’t fit in elsewhere.  So for today here are a few magical and mythical gardens to visit.  Some have already been alluded to in this alphabet, such as the Garden of the Hesperides where Hera’s golden apples grow (see G), and the garden of Xi Wangmu Queen Mother of the West where she grows her peaches of immortality (see X).  I mentioned the Garden of Eden at K, but there’s also a whole post about it which you can read here.

        Avalon is another magical garden of apples, and another island.  According to some versions, it’s the final resting place of King Arthur.

        In Greek mythology Elysium, where heroes enjoy their afterlife, takes the form of beautiful flowery meadows and fertile gardens.

        Fangmu is one of three Islands of the Immortals, which may actually be gardens atop the backs of giant turtles, which is always excellent.

        In the Hindu epic Ramayana, Ashoka Vatika is a garden in the kingdom of the rakshasa (“demon”) king.  Although it has mythical origins, it is now identified with an actual garden in Sri Lanka.

        The opposite case is the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which (like Xanadu, a semi-mythical pleasure garden I wrote about in this post), was once upon a time a real place (probably), but has over time become elevated to mythical status.  I made this illustration of my own imaginary version of Hanging Gardens that are more magical than the original was.

        In the fairy tale Rapunzel, the witch’s garden presumably has a certain amount of magic growing in it - including perhaps the herb rapunzel itself.  

        And I have to mention the Secret Garden from the book by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  Although not technically magic, it certainly verges toward magical realism in its life-giving power.  Which serves as a fine moral for today: even the most mundane garden can be amazingly magical!

[Pictures: Flowers, illustration from The Land of Neverbelieve by Norman Messenger, 2012;

Parallel Plants, illustration from Parallel Botany by Leo Lionni, 1977 (Images from Ariel S. Winter on Flickr);

Garden, hand colored wood block print from Buch der Natur by Conradus de Megenberg, 1475 (Image from MDZ Digitale Bibliothek);

Hanging Gardens, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2021 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]