Jungle Peace

Color woodcut on Japan paper, no date. Edition of 75. Signed, titled and numbered in pencil. The sheet was folded on the left side, on purpose, to be used for a Christmas greeting on a folded paper tab. The tab, folded back, annotated in red crayon: “Cheery Christmas Wishes / to the / Three Bears / The Big tall Bear with black crayons / The medium sized Bears with lovely dolls / and / The Little Bear with many water colors.” This is a veritable wilderness wonderland, with two toads or frogs in the foreground, a pair of white herons and a hummingbird in the middle ground, and a pair of deer, a buck and a doe in the background drinking from a waterfall. All this occurs in the middle of a dense, and lush rainforest, indicated very simply, but successfully with various leaf shapes and vines, opening to a clearing. With just two colors and a simple composition, Eva Auld Watson opens a whole wide forest to the viewer.