"Choban" in Color

This is a hand-colored version of the woodcut I made and posted about a few days ago. I actually designed the cut with the intention of adding color. Not sure how I feel about this version. But that's always how I feel after I make a color version of a black and white print.

Sketchbook Sunday: Family Portraits

Tonight Will, the girls and I had a family drawing night inspired by the workshop I went to with Meri Adelman last week. We each took about 1 minute to draw another person with a black Sharpie and then we colored them in (not necessarily coloring the one we drew.) Lots of fun. The kids want to start doing this regularly. We'll see what happens.

"Choban"

This is the proof of my print for Baren Forum Exchange #75. It's of our recently adopted dog Choban, hanging out on the couch where he sleeps at night. I've got the run of black and white prints finished, but I really want to hand-color them before I send them out. I'm planning to play around with paints tomorrow to see what I can come up with.

My Year of the Dog Woodcut

This is a little 2.75" x 4" woodcut of one of our new family dogs - "Mary" (a little, black chiweenie) that I did for this year's Chinese New Year Exchange through the Baren Forum for Woodblock Printmaking. It's the Year of the Dog. I'm going to try some hand-coloring before I decide whether the cards I send out will be black and white or color.

Sketchbook Sunday: Portraits with Meri Adelman

Last night I participated in a portrait drawing workshop called "Facing Ourselves" with artist Meri Adelman. It's part of the Women's Creativity Nights series of workshops at Six Senses Clay Studio (I'm offering white line printmaking February 3rd). There were five of us there. Meri took 4 minutes to draw each participant (and later I drew Meri), and then we took turns using oil pastels to fill in the drawings with color and patterns. Unfortunately I hadn't brought my camera, so I only have this photograph of the portrait of me. But they were all stunning and fun to make.

Five different types of dogs (woodcut from 1547)

Small dragons make
Fair stripes, furry gradations, and
Courageous spirals

"Twilight Snow at Hashiba" by Hiroshige

By the falling snow
Three worlds are joined together
Water, earth, and sky