Circle of Life- The Final Sketchbook

Here is the long awaited completion to Anna Warren’s Sketchbook collaboration. The project was started in March 2015. Anna’s theme was “The Circle of Life”. I found it fascinating that we all chose plants as our muses for this book. Below is the first group page. You can get  a flavor for what each artistContinue reading “Circle of Life- The Final Sketchbook”

Relearning printing

Whew! The print is finally finished with an edition of 15. This was certainly a relearning experience that I won’t soon forget. I managed to create 14 prints before I realized I needed to be polishing the negative space around the dog in order to achieve a clean print. Why it took me that long,Continue reading “Relearning printing”

Waiting For Breakfast

Halfway through the edition I realized that the recycled print paper is changing how the image comes out. I chose to tear apart old test proofs from an India series of screen prints from university days. The backs are beautiful and pretty clean, unfortunately  I can tell where the screen print starts and stops onContinue reading “Waiting For Breakfast”

Slow progress forward

Little Ms Hazel is coming near the end. A few more areas to darken & a bit more definition in others. My big quandary is whether to add a dog dish or not. Since I’m feeling lazy, I probably won’t add it it, but a bit more ground work is likely so she’s sitting on something.Continue reading “Slow progress forward”

Pulling out the apron

This morning the print space was reconfigured for actual work. The inking slab cleaned of a thick dust layer, press blankets pulled out of storage and arranged in correct order, and the press uncovered and dusted. Ink had to be pulled from bins and opened. Paper scraps located and torn into test size (this is aContinue reading “Pulling out the apron”

Final Page

Holy cow! It’s finally done! All it took was letting go of fears and playing with color. Above, I’ve posted the slideshow of progress, from tentative drawing to finished page. I love watching how work develops over time. From a rather bland image to one that has a bit more depth and structure. Well, at leastContinue reading “Final Page”

Dried

The final page in Anna’s book is progressing. You can see just a tad of Cathe’s image to the right. The subject I chose was the stages of a Christmas Cactus(Schlumbergera) flower. This, the final page, holds a dried/shriveled flower. I stared out using colored pencils and shifted rapidly to watercolors. We shall see how itContinue reading “Dried”

Terrier print day 2

  Slowly it’s starting to emerge. Part of me wants to dump a layer of hard ground over the plate, re-scratch lines and toss it in an acid bath. It’s been about 6 years since doing this style of printing and I’ve forgotten how difficult it is to wait as the image emerges before doing aContinue reading “Terrier print day 2”

In search of a tool

Wednesday  How long does it take to find one simple needle tool? Apparently all day. I searched through all the various tool drawers, shelves, bins, tins and even under and behind the drafting board. I checked the floor and around the press. It had to be somewhere close. Of course, it’s been a year sinceContinue reading “In search of a tool”

Dogs and copper plates 

I’ve been contemplating what to create for this years “Leftovers ” print exchange. The last 3 entries have been dog portraits, something near and dear to my heart. So far my idea is to do a dry point etching of Hazel with an empty dog dish. Recently I ran across a book in my collectionContinue reading “Dogs and copper plates “