Behind the Block Print: The Inspiration Behind Sundazed – Lake Tahoe by Craig Mitchell

Every block print begins long before the first line is carved into wood. Behind the Block Print is where I share the true stories behind each image—the places, the moments, and the years of experience that quietly guide my work. Check out the first in this series: The Inspiration by Arborglyphs.

Sundazed – Lake Tahoe began recently at Lake Tahoe, where I’ve painted countless times over the years. Of all the places around the lake, I’m most drawn to the northeast shore, especially the stretch between Sand Harbor and Bonsai Rock. That’s where I feel most comfortable, and where ideas tend to come quickly and one after another.

Over time, I learned that if I wanted to work there, I had to arrive very early—often in the dark—setting up as the sun was just coming up. The reason was simple: by about 3 pm, the sun would hit the water at just the right angle, bounce straight back up, and blind anyone standing on that shore.

That backlight was brutal. It caused the worst sunburns in places that never normally get burned—under the brim of my hat, under my chin, across the forehead from reflected light. Miserable. And suddenly it occurred to me: Anything that forces me to leave is probably worth studying more closely.

Turning Into the Light

So instead of packing up that afternoon, I turned my easel directly into the glare and set up a new board. I tipped my hat down low, squinted, and painted just beneath the brim—reducing that blinding light into a simplified study of color and contrast.

It wasn’t a finished painting by any means. But it was enough. It gave me the notes I needed to take the idea back to the studio and begin working from it on a deeper level.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that I don’t need everything. In fact, too much information can actually get in the way. Art requires invention, interpretation, and design—but it still must begin with something real. I always rely on something that started outdoors. After that, the path forward becomes inventive, interpretive, and open.

A Sketch That Waited Its Turn

That Tahoe sketch sat on a shelf in my studio for a couple of years. I always meant to explore it—but it intimidated me. That shimmering water was terrifying to simplify. A surface twelve miles wide, sparkling with endless flecks of light—how do you reduce that without destroying it? Eventually I realized, You don’t simplify by removing the sparkle. You simplify by designing it.

Once I committed to that, the real challenge began—unity.

Designing Unity Through Texture

Unity is everything in art. Without it, a work simply doesn’t hold together. In music it’s the key. In writing it’s tone and voice. In painting, it can be color, texture, or the way the surface is handled.

In this print, the water would be heavily textured—but nowhere else was. That wouldn’t work. So I challenged myself to create texture everywhere. What followed was one of the most important breakthroughs of this piece: I developed entirely new textures by trial and error—not from books, not from teachers, not from other artists. These techniques are now in my pocket. I can pull them out again anytime in the future. That alone made this print a success for me.

Building the Composition: The Hidden “Z”

The next challenge was composition. Originally, the reflection created a straight vertical strip from the distant shore to my feet in the rocks. That wasn’t going to work—it was static and uninteresting. So I shifted the highlight, giving it a slight curve so it feels windswept, not rigid.

I worked in fifths:

• The main highlight begins two-fifths from the right

• The primary mountain peak sits three-fifths from the left

• The cloud mass is heavier on the left, lighter on the right

• The rocks in the foreground also follow that same balance

Those foreground rocks weren’t in the original sketch—I added them deliberately to warm the composition and balance the cool blues of the water and sky.

All of this created a subtle Z-shaped movement through the print. You don’t see it outright—but if you step back, you feel it. Without that invisible structure beneath the surface, the entire image would collapse.

Nothing in this print is accidental. Everything that works is there because I put it there.

The Largest Print I’ve Ever Made

Sundazed – Lake Tahoe is the largest block print I’ve ever created to date. It was carved from seven separate wood blocks, pushing my press to the absolute limit of its width. I’ve maximized what my equipment can do at this scale—but not its depth yet. There’s still room to go bigger in the future.

This print was also an exercise in texture unlike anything I’ve ever done before. And honestly, I surprised myself. When an artist can create something that inspires their own work, there’s nothing better than that.

Design, Nature, and Control

I'm a designer at heart. There’s a difference between altering nature so it becomes unrecognizable—and altering it so it becomes more true. When I move a mountain slightly, add rocks where they didn’t exists, shift the glare in the water, or bend the reflection into wind, I’m not distorting nature. I’m holding it accountable to design.

Nature is the greatest artist of all. But nature doesn’t make paintings, prints, or sculpture. Nature gives us the raw material—and it’s up to us to decide what to do with it.

As I learned long ago: God gives the milk, but not the pail. Nature gives me everything I need. The design is my responsibility.

Why Sundazed – Lake Tahoe Endures

This print is more than a moment of blinding Tahoe light. It holds:

• The physical memory of that reflected glare

• A personal breakthrough in texture

• A composition built deliberately from invisible structure

• And my deepest beliefs about design and artistic control

It is, without question, one of the most demanding—and most rewarding—prints I have ever made.

About the Print

Sundazed – Lake Tahoe is a hand-carved, hand-pulled block print, created from seven individual wood blocks and printed in small editions in my Reno studio. It is the largest print I have produced to date, and no two impressions are exactly alike.