The Party Guests

These are some special birthday party guests that I made last fall. They were done as black and white solarplate etchings and then colored with watercolor. I designed them to be able to interchange the head, body and legs. Have you seen those books that are cut in sections and you can mix and match the body parts? That type of book is called an exquisite corpse. On the bottom row they are all mixed up.

Checker Book Giveaway!

Anyone in the mood for checkers? This is a handmade blank book with antique checker pieces sewn onto the cover.

The first person to post a comment here and then email me jill@jillbergman.com a short poem or drawing involving the game of checkers will WIN THIS BOOK!

You can write in it! You can draw in it! You can keep phone messages in it! You can note winning checkers strategies in it! The possibilities are endless. 

I have two winners!

Donna Earnhardt sent this fun poem-

He and me
   and me and he
Playing checkers by the sea


"I jumped your king!"

     "Don't mean a thing!"

"I took two men"

     "I took ten!"

"I'm in a groove..."

     "Then make a move."

"HA! I win."

     "by the hair of your chin."

He and me
and me and he
playing again - best two of three!

And Sam Kirkman sent this drawing-

Thanks for playing!!!

New Dummy

I've started a new children's picture book dummy. The story is one I wrote (and am constantly rewriting) called The Rest of the World. A dummy is a mock-up of the book with sketches, text and some finished art. 

So far this one is just light sketches and they are probably hard to see in this photo. I'll post some art when I make more progress. It's so much fun!

Colorado Snapshots

I've been working on some small Colorado prints. They are 2 1/2 inches square. They're for greeting cards or maybe a small accordion book. I'll have some more summer and fall ones soon.

Evergreen book DONE!

I shipped the finished copy of my book Evergreen to Alicia Bailey at Abecedarian Gallery yesterday. Yeah! She is going to put it in a display in the NCAR library in Boulder, CO.

In these photos, I've attached the art and put on the brass strips to frame each image. I painted the wooden pieces to frame the samples and got the leather straps ready. I put in the tree samples and covered them with mylar. I attached the wooden pieces to hold in the mylar.
Next- sewing! Then I worked on the leather straps to get them ready to attach to the book with the help of my assistant Zoe kitty.
Done- Whew!

Evergreen book

I've been working on a second copy of my book Evergreen. There are SSOOOOOOO many steps. In these photos I've carved out places for the art and inset areas for trim. I signed the book by pressing into the  wood, painting over it, and then sanding the excess paint off. Now I'm staining the boards. Next I'll be attaching the art and putting in samples from 7 different evergreen trees.

Perspective

Sunrise Mountain looked impossible to climb from their perspective.

This was a quick sketch that I decided to paint. It's obviously not my usual style- but I had fun doing it as an experiment!