Dogdish Afternoon

 

 

Teamwork or opportunity? At times, ravens appear to work in partnership to trick or steal. Dogs are often selected to be playmates or victims of raven-style games. More than one dog owner has reported that ravens have a taste for dog chow. While one raven distracts the owner of the dog dish, the co-conspirator will eat with gusto.

 

The stealing behavior may also be called pirating. Ravens will pirate food from other small hunters like otters, squirrels and even cats.  Flying over in attack fashion, the raven will startle the animal into dropping its food, which will swiftly be claimed by the buccaneer bird.

Hand-painted linocut

13 x 9.5 inches

Edition of 200

 

Sizes listed are of the linocut images themselves; I leave an additional white border of paper on all sides.

My linocuts are printed on cotton rag paper the old-fashioned way: I carve with knives and gouges to create my imagery in slabs of linoleum. Then I roll ink over the surface, lay cotton paper on top, and crank the block through my etching press. I repeat this process for each impression in the edition, which means: If an image is in an edition of 40, I do this 40 times! After the prints dry, I generally hand-paint them, often with many layers of color, making each print a unique work of art.