Quail! David Everett Adds Quail to His Southwest Lexicon

Quail, chiroscuro woodcut, image 10 x 8 inches, paper 12 3/4 x 14 inches, edition of 20.

Flatbed is excited to announce the publication of David Everett’s most recent woodcut, Quail. Everett has been creating woodcuts to add to his ongoing series of Southwest animals, and the 2025 newest addition is his Quail. Growing up near Beaumont in East Texas, Everett was attentive to the myriad of species to be found in Texas. His woodcuts of birds are faithful to each bird’s descriptive details. Quail, his newest woodcut, is the scaled quail (Callipepla squamata), also called blue quail or cottontop. It is a bluish gray bird found in the arid regions of the Southwestern United States to Central Mexico, so it can be found in our Texas plains and scrub-brush regions among cacti and other arid flora. This bird is named for the scaly appearance of its breast and back feathers. Along with its scaly markings, the bird is easily identified by its white crest that resembles a tuft of cotton. It nests primarily on the ground in a grass-lined hollow, and is easily spooked. When it is disturbed, it prefers to r \un than fly.

The chiaroscuro woodcut method that Everett used for this print and the others in the series, refers to printing with two carved woodblocks to create a finished image. For Quail the “blue-green” block was printed first. Carved areas in this block reveal the highlights of the images. After the blue ink dried, the key block was printed in black over the blue. The key block carries all the details of Quail, the background cacti, and the full figure of an adult quail in the distance.

Quail was printed in a limited edition of 20. To learn more and to acquire the print, link below or stop by Flatbed during gallery hours to see this print and the others in Everett’s series. You can also purchase this and any of the other Everett prints through our online store. We can safely ship this and any of our prints anywhere.