It was my day off with Thing #2 in tow and we wandered out to the Curley Creek Estuary. I believe that this is a purple shore crab. The water is starting to fill up with cargo due to the strike at the local port. I've always loved seeing the big ships out there and I finally found a website that will tell me more about where the boats are from and what they are up to. 

Another quality control update for my Threadless shop. I haven't been happy with how the print quality has lasted on black background mugs. The mugs that I've had for just a couple months show black streaking through the white design after just a few washes. I haven't had any trouble with the white background mugs. In fact, I've had my Couch Pickle mug for a year now and it still looks great. I'm gradually going through and updating the designs I offer. I no longer offer any mugs with a black background. Also, at one point I had a couple dozen designs up. Now I have a lot less. I plan to add more back as I gradually tailor the designs for white background mugs. Here's the two latest that I've fixed.

This weekend I had the opportunity to volunteer at Wayzgoose. It's an art festival in Bremerton that uses a steamroller to take printing to epic levels. It was fun to art with other people and make 3' x 3' linocut prints.
It has also properly motivated me to make progress on some of my own print work. I have 6 screens in various states of cleanliness. After I get the remaining old emulsion off, I need to mix up a fresh batch and apply a nice thin layer to dry in a dark place. Then I need to burn my designs onto the screens. This is a really nice project for the summer because it just isn't fun standing outside in the cold January rain spraying a screen with a hose.
But before I get to all that, I need to decide what I want to put on the screens and order the transparencies from the office supply store. I'm putting a lot of thought into my choices because I want to keep these on the screens for a very long time.  The little screens are great for kids shirts or onesies. I like to have a few cute designs hanging around so I can easily make baby gifts. The two big ones are great for adult shirts, tote bags, tea towels, or ? Then there is a long skinny one that I'm not super sure what to do with. I'm also thinking about applying to carve a 3' x 3' print for Wayzgoose next year... so there is scheming for that. Plus I figured that somethings are just better the size of a stamp (I have several 4"x 6" blanks) and I can just do them that way. This is a screenshot of my Sketch document that I'm using to visualize the hypothetical collection I'll have in the end. Also of note, I would do two different house stamps. One to print the background first and the next to go in with the outlines.