Kelp Forest---Open Edition Giclée

PRICE  $175.

MEDIUM   Now available as Open Edition Giclée, signed by me. Lithograph is sold out.

IMAGE SIZE  19.5” x 14.75”

PAPER SIZE  24” x 20”

The Monterey Bay Aquarium commissioned me for this print. At the time I was living about 40 minutes away on the Capitola River (Creek?) in Capitola, which is just south of Santa Cruz, CA. I must say that the bird watching from my perch by the window was excellent. One of my prize sightings was a flock of cedar waxwings. They look like birds designed by a graphic designer. (So do rufous-sided towhees, now that I think of it...)

The funnest part about this project was that I got to hang out at the aquarium early in the day before it opened. I wandered around and took a ton of pictures. Research scientists in scuba gear would wander by and I was star struck. In high school before I realized I was an artist, I thought I might major in marine biology in college. (Good thing I didn't though, because I don't think I would make a very good scientist. I have said many times that I don't care how things work, I just care if they look good. NOT a good attitude for a scientist.) They said the kelp forest exhibit was a major part of their aquarium and that the kelp forests off of the Monterey coast are rich with all sorts of aquatic life. So, kelp and its denizens became my focus. Since I also wanted to choose something that would fit in with my Japanese sensibilities and that maybe people would actually want to hang in their homes, I chose s starry rockfish. Plus, I just liked the design of them.

Let me now officially go on the record that trying to make kelp look esthetic was one of the more difficult projects I'd ever encountered. (I don't like drawing lettuce either.)

I have a very design-y style, rather than a literal style. I took the idea of water and instead of showing maybe a sense of wavy water covering everything I turned the water concept into a Japanese-style icon and then floated it throughout my image. Someone once asked me why I had those 2 little rows of checks along the edges--one vertical and one horizontal. I just covered them up with my hands and said: because the print looks better with them. Brilliant, Watson!

The open edition solid color lithograph of this print has sold out, so I have produced the image as an open edition giclée, which is a very high quality digital print with archival inks on archival paper. Quality is superb and looks just as good as my solid color lithographs and serigraphs.

I’ve also added my hand-embossed round bird logo beneath the image.