With this woodblock print I am now officially finished with the first phase of my series: The Disasters. This, of course, is the wind aspect of the series and was very difficult to finish as I was carving out of red oak, an extremely hard wood. I learned quite a bit in the process and broke a few tools as well. You can not work red oak like birch or pine, it's fibers are interwoven and course, however I needed to see if it was worth the surface texture. To my satisfaction it was indeed worth the time, effort and pain. Trying to capture something as dynamic, fleeting and without heft as the wind on a solid surface is one of the hardest tasks I've ever attempted. The next phase of both The Disasters and The Four will have me challenge either lithography and silkscreen or cast relief and stencil. After all the reproducible media are complete I will begin tackling the one off forms.
