Robin's Nest in the Studio

         Today's post is about the creation of my most recent rubber block print.  It’s directly based on a photograph I took in 2020 when, during the COVID lockdown, robins nested in the forsythia right outside our front door.  In fact, I took dozens of pictures over the course of three weeks, recording my new neighbors’ development from turquoise eggs to wrinkly pink hatchlings to scruffy brown fledglings.  This photo remains one of my all-time favorites, but for a long time I didn’t seriously consider making a block print from it.  I thought it wouldn’t work very well because it’s got so many fiddly details and because the bright colors are such an important part of what makes it a beautiful image.

        So here we are, four years later, and I’ve finally made a block print after all.  What changed my mind?  Well, back in 2020 I wrote a poem about the robins’ nest, and I decided that the poem should be included in my forthcoming book Bittersweetness & Light.  Every poem and story in the book will have illustrations, and although of course most of those illustrations are block prints, my first plan was to include the photograph as the illustration for the poem.  But I wasn’t sure I liked the less consistent design of having a mix of such different styles of illustrations, and my beta readers agreed.  Plan B, therefore, was to make a faux block print, which I do digitally.  (If you want to know about that process, you can read my prior post about how I make my Faux Woodcuts.)  I was quite pleased with the way that came out and put it in the book, and moved on with my life.

        But the digital version turned out to be a victim of its own success: it helped me see how this image really could work as an actual relief block print, and when I needed something to carve during a summer show, I decided to use the digital version as the design for a physical version.  I printed it out on the printer, traced over all the lines, and transferred the design to rubber to carve.  I used the harder rubber that I dislike, because I have a bunch of it and I thought it would work relatively well for all the fine lines.  I used the oil-based Caligo Safe Wash ink so that I could then use watercolor to paint in the colors of flowers, leaves, and eggs.

        It certainly isn't as bright as the photograph, but in the end I’m very happy with how this ended up, even though (or perhaps because) it’s fairly different from my usual style.  My next show will be in just over a month: Roxbury Open Studios on October 5-6, so that will be the Robin’s Nest’s debut and my first chance to see whether it makes other people as happy as it makes me!  (And yes, this is the version that will be accompanying my poem in the book.)

[Pictures: Robin’s Nest, photo by AEGNydam, 2020;

Robin’s Nest, rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam, 2024 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]