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Copyright 2010 - B. de Corbin and Splendid Fish Studio

Home About Me Hand Crafted Jewelry and Fantasy Artifacts Fantasy Art T Shirts, Tote Bags, and Other Fun Stuff Gods, Heroes, and a Couple of Regular Guys: Corbin's Tall Tales The Sorcerer's Book of Fun Things to Make and Do The Free Art Gallery of Limited Edition Woodcuts About Athames and Images of Some I've Made The Work in Progress FAQs The Background Lady Order Information Call Me Friends and Enemies Links

What's new, Bill? Last update 4/16/2010 Michigan Witches Ball 2010 I am very excited to be a sponsor for this great event! To find out more about one of Michigan's best parties, click the link above. All sales are now being handled through my Etsy shop: www.splendidfish.etsy.com Click on the link above to see what is currently available. Don't worry, friends, it's still me behind the scenes! I've added a new section called Gods, Heroes, and a Couple of Regular Guys: Corbin's Tall Tales When I create a new piece of design work, it often happens that they come, much like a baby with a silver spoon in it's mouth, bearing a story. Unfortunately, when I sell a piece, the story is sometimes lost with it. I've decided to collect these stories into a section all their own, for your enjoyment. Enjoy them! Don't forget to click on the BLUE WORDS anywhere on this site to enter new worlds of mythic imagination.

Woodcuts

Drawings

Paintings

First Page

Second Page

Third Page

Fourth Page

Woodcuts

Here's what you came for - all the free stuff.

For your convenience, I have taken the liberty of separating my offerings into several categories: woodcuts (or woodblock prints), drawings (in this case, pen and ink), and paintings (primarily watercolors, but maybe some acrylic paintings as well). Choose wisely, or choose foolishly. What have you got to lose? It's free. But do choose.

Please don't skip this part - it's a legal thing, and I know how you feel about lawyers (my little brother is one, but mom and dad are still proud of him. Ah, the peculiar beauty of familial affection!). Uncle Bill doesn't want to have to do this, but you can 't always want what you have to do. It is important!

IMPORTANT NOTE: All images are copy written by B. de Corbin and/or Splendid Fish Studio. B. de Corbin and Splendid Fish Studio give you express permission to use the art within this site for your own, personal, non-commercial purposes, provided the copy write notice is displayed with the artwork. If you use one or more of these pieces on a web page, you must include a link to the home page of this site. You may not use the art, or any part of any piece of art from these pages, to create any product which will be sold, or used to promote or advertise any product or service involving payment or barter. If in doubt as to where your intended use falls within this description, please contact me for clarification. Acquiring any of this art in any way indicates your agreement with these terms.

These are prints made by cutting into the surface of a block of wood (usually pine, in my case. Pine is a renewable natural resource). Once the cutting is done, ink is rolled onto the uncut surface areas of the block with a roller (referred to as a "brayer," possibly because it makes a noise not unlike a donkey). Next, a sheet of thin paper (I use exotic handmade papers imported from places like China and Ohio) is placed on the inked block. Because the paper is thin and sometimes delicate, a protective sheet of paper is placed over the printing paper to protect it, then some kind of pressure (a great deal of pressure) is applied to transfer the ink from the block to the paper (a press may be used, if you have one - I don't. Most people use a hand tool called a "barren" for this. Others use the rounded backside of a spoon [which is what works best for me]. I have even heard of people driving their car over it). And then, there you go, print number one. Twenty more to go.

Artists take note. This is a good way of reproducing your art. It does not require much in the way of special equipment - only time and effort. The only drawback - and this is also the beauty of the media - is that it is difficult to create extremely detailed prints. Artists working with woodcuts generally like to deal with blocks of color which stand out against the white of the paper. See The Early Bird and The Worm for an example of the use of blocks of color, although if you note the Gothic Dragons you will see that detail is, indeed, possible.

You may, of course, print these any way you like, but I would recommend that you use a white paper with what is referred to as a "laid" texture. This will do two things.

1. It will approximate most closely the texture of the original paper (paper texture is extremely important to printmakers)
2. It will cover (somewhat) the inevitable loss in detail which results from digitizing artwork for computer use.

The white paper is important because most of the printing paper I use is off-white or light tan, and this color shows up in the scan. Any color other than white will affect the background color. Paper such as I describe is easily found at the store as fancy resume paper.

In the description below each thumbnail I will indicate the original size of the artwork and whether to set your printer for "landscape" or "portrait." Click on each image to go to the full sized printable art. I suggest that you copy any art that you wish to print to your hard drive, import it into a page layout program such as Microsoft Word and print from there. That way you can adjust the size to meet your own needs.

The Early Bird and the Worm
Original image size: 5" X 7.5"
Print portrait

Caged
Original image size: 5" X 7.5"
Print portrait

Crocodile (With Tears)
Original image size: 5" X 7.5"
Print portrait

Red Goldfish
Original image size: 8" X 6"
Print landscape

Armadillo
Original image size: 9" X 6.5"
Print landscape

Iktos
Original image size: 9" X 9"
Print portrait