Maybe Only the Caged Bird Will Sing by Elsi Vassdal Ellis

This edition was not planned or designed in advance but emerged during productive play time to reacquaint myself with my Vandercook 4 while using up leftover materials in the studio. Using mounted fiberglass table mats the printing began by laying down patterns front and back on three stacks of press sheets. Searching through my cuts, dingbats, and ornaments I chose the theme of birds. Lifestyle Crafts inks (light blue and royal blue) were used to print blue ink on blue paper as a continuation of a monochrome series begun in 2012. Room was left for the insertion of text generated from articles saved from The New Scientist, Discover, Smithsonian, and The Week. The text highlights the dangers faced by birds as well as survival skills. There are two barrel-roll signatures designed to take advantage of artwork width and potential, and for a binding challenge. No new materials were purchased for this edition as part of my second series, also begun in 2012: “Waste Not, Want Not.”