Wood Paper Art

On an outing on Fourth St. in Berkeley I wandered into Miki’s Paper, a purveyor of Japanese hand stenciled paper. While browsing the store I found blank sheets of cherry wood paper. I’ve never seen nor worked on wood paper before so I bought a sheet to see what I could do with it. After staring at the grain for days I finally found some inspiration and went to town on it. The final result is a Japanese inspired scene with cherry blossom and a Mt. Fuji-esque mountain in the background incorporated in my style.
Here is the final piece:

Ziggy's Zoo

My newborn son is due to show up any day now and my wife and I couldn’t be more excited. In lieu of painting the baby’s room we opted to use our creativity and come up with another way to dress up the walls. We decided that we would paint six canvases, each one with a different animal, three sea creatures and three land dwellers. On a trip to the art store we found wood canvases. I have never seen these before, they were right up our alley and match the crib and dresser in his room so we figured, what the hell, let’s go for it.

I sketched out all the animals first, drew them on the wood next, then we painted them. We’re so happy with how they came out. I think at some point I may screen print some sets and make them available. In the interim we’ve turned the paintings into graphics for thank you cards — a line we’re calling “Ziggy’s Zoo.”

We love knowing that our little guy is going to fall asleep and wake up in a room of happy animals; we can’t wait for him to name them all.

Here are the finished paintings.