It's that time of year!

Ah, spring. Migrants are arriving. Grass is turning green. And warp speed must be engaged. 

April and May are The Crazy Months for me– a time when jury submissions are due and show notifications are received and the Colorado Governor's Show opens. I'm also getting together and delivering summer work for the galleries, especially since I'll be headed back to Maine at the beginning of June. Holy cow! That's not much more than a month away.

There hasn't been much happening in the studio in way of new linos, but it doesn't mean there hasn't been work going on. Quite the opposite, in fact!

First up was a commission piece for the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, to honor a long-time staff member who is leaving the flock for another position. Jason has spent much of his time at BCR studying black swifts, a mysterious little species that nests behind waterfalls and whose insubstantial little feet oblige it to cling to rock walls instead of perching. 

"The Coolest Bird," hand-colored linocut ©Sherrie York (embiggenable with a click)

Their secretive nature and difficult-to-reach nests make it difficult for me to collect my own reference, so I'd like to give a big shout-out to photographer Bill Schmoker for his help there. I did see a black swift once. It was a black dot in the shade on wet rocks behind a waterfall. Not very helpful.

After the swifts were winging their way to their final destination I started work on an illustration project for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Long-time readers of Brush and Baren may remember that the early posts of this blog (ten years ago now!) had more paint than ink in them. Funny how times change, although it's nice to revisit watercolor once in a while. 

Illustrations in progress. Western meadowlark, great horned owl, dusky grouse.
(No, this isn't the rare subspecies of footless grouse. I just haven't gotten there yet!)

Tomorrow I'm off to Colorado Springs to present a demonstration for the Colorado Springs Art Guild, and then Friday it's back to Loveland for the opening of the Governor's Show. In between I'm hoping to get a new reduction lino ready to roll. But of course there's framing to do and... 

I'll freak myself out if I think about it too much, so it's back to work. If in the next couple of weeks you happen to see a short, blonde-ish woman running around in circles with a brush in one hand and a brayer in the other... well... say hello. It's probably me.