Your 37 Seconds, &... Linocut Printing!

I. Your 37 Seconds Start Now

 "77 percent of Internet users report reading blog content, but most of them are just skimming. The average reader spends 37 seconds on a post." [--via (corporate marketing site)]

BELOW: What I saw when I walked into the kitchen this morning.
They said they're ready to parade.

"It's tomorrow," I said. "The Fourth of July Mouse Parade to Celebrate Mice is on the Fourth. Scoot over so I can make coffee."

Okay, there's your 37 seconds.
__________________________

II. Linocut Printing

I’ve decided to try making my own Girlette Calendars for 2024, using a nontoxic method.
I was thinking screenprinting, but, wow, I didn't realize--there are a lot of chemicals in preparing the plate--the best emulsions etc. I found were "not very toxic".
Maybe there's a better way--like beeswax for batik--but the process looked too complicated and space-taking for beginner me.

Then I thought of the way GZ creates prints in a small space: she cuts linoleum blocks (like woodblocks). Her posts tagged 'Linocut Printing'. I know there are water-based inks. I will ask GZ what she recommends...

I've bought some of her beautiful little prints and love them! (Her Etsy shop is on break though.)
BELOW, in little dark-blue frame: Tree (sorry, I forgot its name—Update: GZ says it’s “Oak Tree with Crow”—thanks GZ), Linocut by GwynnethRixon
(Also Hana and Cricket, dolls from Japan)

Also--hey, a book title with the phrase I was complaining about. The Best We Could Do is a graphic memoir by Thi Bui about her family leaving war-torn Vietnam for the USA when she was a child.
I haven't read it yet--I just pulled it out so I will read it next.

(OF COURSE I know that sometimes we do do our best, or try our best--and sometimes we fail anyway. As Capt. Picard says, that is not weakness, that is life.)

I've finished the novel Pioneer Girl, which is related. The American-born daughter of Vietnamese immigrants researches her background and how it connects--or not--with the experience of Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Halfway through, I wasn't sure I'd recommend it (to Kirsten), but I do.

Anyway, I remember liking to cut and print linocuts in high school. I'm going to try it, to see if I could make twelve prints good enough for a calendar.

III. Camino, Week 2

Marz will have started her second week on Camino today!
(Hi, Marz! In case you see this at some albergue. . . I paid your deposit to Vermillion--I had to call--their computer had been down the day your application arrived, but no problem. Miss you! Love you! Walk good!)

BELOW: my sketches from Day 7, 2001.
On day 1, I was bandaging a blister by the Pass of Roland from the 700s . . . Here bink is bandaging a blister by a bunker from the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s.