Seven Day Challenge

Both of these are of my friend J, who was among the many friends and family members who would put up with modeling for me as I turned into sort of a roving court reporter, recording whatever the people around me were doing.  Both drawings are fairly large graphite and wash.

Seven Day Challenge

This print is from the seventies when I was an undergrad art student doing many figure studies and learning how to make relief prints.  It’s around 13 x 15 inches and printed on Japanese hosho paper. 

Test

In-Process

A friend wrote and asked me about our process on this piece.   First my friend and I immersed ourselves in research about the history and pre-history of this little slackwater bayou we both used to live near.  Then we got together every few weeks and began brainstorming and sketching layouts.  We also started carving eraser blocks of early flora and fauna from an 18th century book we managed to find about this very bayou!  Eventually I sawed up a large piece of birch plywood for the background print.  We spent a couple of afternoons printing the sawn block.  Then we would sit together and work side by side on two of the proofs using our collection of stamps and dome water soluble crayons and watercolors.  We’re still at that stage, going very slowly on our two proofs.  Here’s mine propped up still in process in my kitchen.

Robin

Huddled in a corner of our porch this afternoon this robin holding perfectly still.

Why Draw?

Maria Popova says it very well in her blog Brain Pickings today:  “To draw today is to reclaim the dignity and private joy of seeing amid a culture obsessed with looking in public.”  (https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/10/john-ruskin-drawing/?mc_cid-c33610aa7&mc_eid=b3439525b9)

Fibre Fair

I always thought an alpaca was a kind of sheep.  
An icelandic sheep on the left and a sheep being shorn on the right!