One for the Team

What a year for baseball fans!  3 Fish Studios is about a mile down 3rd Street from ATT Park, so more than a few times I found myself getting a cheap ticket and hitting an afternoon ballgame.  You never know where you are going to sit, or who you are going to sit next too.  The great thing about the ballpark is that every seat is a winner, and everyone I have met so far has been entertaining - I love the banter of baseball. 

Like the rest of San Francisco, I watched this 2010 team grow into a pitching and hitting powerhouse.  The post-season was fantastic, and when we beat the Phillies for our spot in the World Series I was excited as the other guy.  When the games began, everyone in San Francisco were friends.  Everyone had something to talk about.  And then we won.  I had to commemorate the occasion. This print is the result.

All my prints start out like this.  A sketch to layout the image, and to work out the lights and darks.  For this print, I wanted to convey the sheer beauty of the ballpark.  Big field, scoreboard, flags flying, and boats on the Bay.  

After reversing the image, I transfer it to a sheet of linoleum and begin to carve.  It is a lot of work, but I love the process.

One of the challenges for this print was the crowd.  I ended up taking my drypoint tool (used for etching) and marking the linoleum with it.  I then went back and carved larger circles with more conventional relief tools.  

Here is a detail of the scoreboard.  You can see how the crowd turned out.  Not too shabby!

And here is a detail of the field and the players.  I got the umpires on 1st and 3rd.  I wanted to movement of the field to compliment the movement of the water in the background.

I am only going to print 100 of these.  They are available here for $75.00.  And they look great in a 24"x14" frame.