A Celtic Knot Unraveled

I enjoy doing the occasional logo marks. To be able to help a business develop a unique identity makes me happy. Usually my logo work is for local clients, which is fun to actually know and love the business involved. My latest was with an owner of a great local used book shop. Virtually 10's of 1000s of volumes are meticulously inventoried here. It also has a feature that all my favorite books shops have- store cats! There is nothing I like better, and always will, than to browse the shelves of a well-organized book shop, with cats lounging near by, in various states of slumber.

The owner has just done a brave and wonderful thing, buying a historic building in the Northside neighborhood of Iowa City to move her book shop into. She wanted a new mark to celebrate and she called me.

The client loves The Book of Kells, so she handed over a simple sketch of a celtic knot and said "In your scratchboard style, can you tie in a reader, cats and a book into this somehow"?

This is what I came up with.  The Haunted Book Shop (yes, kind of a Dickensian name but not to be changed) will be in it's new digs very soon, and my logo, by then completed with text, will help invite people over it's thereshold.

Prairie Trilogy

Always wanted to finish out a series on the prairie, with these gradient backgrounds. 

Tallgrass Sunrise, Tallgrass Midday, Tallgrass Twilight.

The promised bright greetings...

Finishing up my usual offering of birdlife art for an annual local holiday art show. This year, I went back to the Pacific Northwest for inspiration, where I was born and raised, and borrowed a bird or two. The Western Meadowlark is Oregon's state bird. Oregon grape abounds in the wild woodlands of the west coast states (a common childhood plant for me). Don't know how he'll be received by Iowans (we do get the occasional eastern meadowlark here) but bird lovers appreciate avian forms in general, no matter where they hail.

William Clark wrote a journal entry about the moment the Lewis and Clark's expedition spied the Pacific for the first time, "Ocean in view..Oh, the Joy!"

Perhaps it's what this little yellow songbird is singing about, too.

Silence is Golden

Today, I worked in silence. Usually something is going on in the background: the radio, music, the family. But we are getting a good rain this afternoon and it's nice just listening to it soak in. The golden foliage is lighting up the rooms, even on this gray day.  And not a lot of bird traffic out the window. Except on my drawing board. It does feel like we've turned toward the darker season today. Time for some bright greetings to be created!