Glimpses in Time by Hamilton High School

“My life is my inspiration”

A HUGE thank you to Hamilton High School art teacher Daniele Vickers and her filmmaking class for creating short documentaries of local artists. I was one of those lucky few! Her class made a harrowing trek up my road to do the filming. The whole process was interesting and an amazing amount of preparation and background work went into making this movie. The students did a fantastic job preparing interview questions, setting up and running the equipment. They presented themselves professionally and edited quite of lot of film into this well produced documentary. 

Over the years Laughing Mule Press has grown significantly but the heart and soul of the company remains the same. I talk about some of the animals that have inspired my pieces and the process behind making the prints. The first step is getting inspiration from animals (either friends or my own) so I can share a glimpse of their personality in each piece. Then, I start sketching a series of images in my sketchpad and eventually onto my iPad. This is printed and traced onto linoleum. The carving is a slow, methodical process that takes 3-4 days to complete. Ink is rolled onto the print, paper is pressed by hand, and carefully peeled off - resulting in a beautiful, unique print! There are approximately 30-40 original prints made of each design to keep them in an affordable price range. We can also make you a custom frame from wood that we log with my mules and mill down on our portable sawmill into frame profiles.

More than anything Laughing Mule Press strives to bring people together, put a smile on everyone’s face and share some positivity in this big, messy thing we call life!  

Thank you to Hamilton High School and specifically: 

Director: Jay James 

Editors: Grace Keele, August Hughes, 

Camera Operators: Jay  James,  August Hughes, Dom Smith, Jaylyne Solis, Katy Laird Hollister, Matthew Clifton 

Sound: Aidan Clark, Jaylene Solis, Alexis Kaul

Interviewer: Katy Laird Hollister

Teacher: Daniele Vickers

Daisy, the Princess Bulldog

I actually have a series of three prints of Daisy planned. This is obviously the first one. Here are photos of the sketching, carving, and test prints of different colors.

These are the original sketches to get the layout and work out some of the details. The last one is the drawing in reverse on the lino with marker.

I spent four days carving her out! 

This is the first inking of Daisy. I used marker on the lino for the carving so its harder to see the ink.

This is the first pull of the bulldog print. I did some touch up carving after this before the final prints but it looked pretty good.

Bulldogs in burnt siena, dark brown, and black. It's fun to see the difference.

Here is one of the final prints signed and framed.

A print of a different kind

I decided to do a print of my friends Border Collie with a different style than I have been doing recently. I wanted to do something more cartoony than I normally do. He is a sweet, super snuggly dog but he always has a goofy look in his eyes. My friend says he always looks stoned. His eyes are very bright blue in stark contrast to his black and white fur. I also printed it in blue ink and made the floor boards in the the print slightly slanted just for fun. I hope you like it.

First 3 Prints of Granny

These are the first 3 prints of Granny. I did some touch up on them, but overall I think I'm ready to print a bunch.

Final Carving & First Test Print of Granny

Here are photos of the final carving before the first test print, inking the lino for the first time, and the very first print. I will need to do some touch up carving before the final prints can be made, but it's looking like a good start. It looks like I need to lighten up the shadows below the eye and on her cheek.