Thursday Salute to Originals: Enchanted Landscapes
A Midwestern printmaker hand-carves a series of original dreamy landscapes.
Valerie Lueth co-founded Tugboat Printshop in Pittsburgh in 2006 as a traditional printmaker with a focus on hand-carved designs. Now the sole owner of the midwestern artist press, Lueth’s work at Tugboat has been featured in publications internationally.
Born from a commission for an edition of Jean-Claude Grumberg’s The Most Precious of Cargoes, Lueth’s most recent creations illustrate dreamy forest landscapes in a striking and whimsical style.
Starting with a pencil sketch, Lueth will carve layered designs into several woodblocks, applying a series of sketches to several blocks. Colored and pressed sequentially, this multi-layered approach yields striking depth of color, resulting in finely executed highlights, shadows, and overall detail.
From scenes of forest vegetation to the jewel-encrusted spider web shown here, no two prints are exactly alike.
This Thursday, we’re saluting the work of Valerie Lueth at Tugboat. More original prints are available for purchase on Etsy. You can also follow more of Tugboat’s latest commissions on Instagram.
Sources: Valerie Lueth, This is Colossal