Art Box

I posted recently about Lilla Roger's Assignment Bootcamp and the "mobile studio" I was inspired to make. Well, it's done! It's officially called the Art Box. Now I have somewhere to keep work and supplies tidy and schlep them around the house to be available whenever I have a few minutes to work on something.

I started with a newish sturdy cardboard box and painted it yellow with some old house paint. I have to mention this yellow paint because it was -I SWEAR- 15 years old!! I guess I had the lid on that can really tight. It moved across the country with me twice. But from the price tag on it, I know I bought it at the Salida hardware store near my house when I lived there eons ago. 

Then I painted it fun colors and added a nice strap as a handle so I can carry it with one hand. It turned out a bit gaudy, but hey, I'm not going to redo it. It is a cardboard box after all.

Putting the supplies in was fun. So far I have my sketch book, rulers, pencils and colored pencils, a folder of cut printmaking paper, a piece of masonite as a table surface, watercolor & gouache, paintbrushes, homemade stamps and stamp pads, and my linocut tool. 

I've ordered some new linoleum in precut 5x7 pieces. It's called Richeson Clear Carve Linoleum. I decided to get it because there is a contest. If you use their linoleum, you can enter your piece and win an etching press! Why not?! Also, because it's clear, you don't have to do a lot of work transferring an image. You can lay the block over a drawing and see right through it. And one of my main goals is to learn to work faster and simpler.

I made a bunch of new little stamps recently and it was fun playing with them late at night. I want to try and do small editions of prints by stamping a background pattern and then printing a black and white single linocut over the top. I THINK it will look neat. So the stamps and clear linoleum are for that experiment. Yay for experiments! Yay for the Art Box!

Blog Anniversary and Giveaway!

I started this blog 4 years ago today. I thought I was too shy to have a blog, but I've enjoyed sharing my artwork, my process, and other artwork and books that I love. I hope in 2014 I will be able to get a lot more work done as my baby girl gets older and more independent.

To celebrate I have 4 small prints to give away. The first 4 people to comment on this post who want a print, tell me which one you want. Please also follow the blog in the sidebar on the left if you haven't already, then email me to give me your address. Yay!!!

Thank you to all the wonderful people I've met through this blog over the years, what a lovely community of artists and book lovers!

Laura Wait Workshops Summer 2014

My friend Laura Wait moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico last year. It was sad to have her leave town, but Santa Fe is a perfect place for her. Her bookmaking and handwriting as image classes are in high demand in art schools and camps. But this summer she's offering a chance to take a workshop in her own studio. Here is a link to the info for Writing as Image, Exposed Sewing Structures.

And I'm lucky enough to go and be her assistant for the July class. Yay! 

Baby Sings

Happy New Year everyone!

This blog is having a 4 year anniversary this January! My posts have been a little spotty for the last year, but I'm building up a nice momentum again and hopefully I will be posting some interesting things in 2014. In a week or so I will have info about a little giveaway to celebrate the anniversary- stay tuned.

I'm still working on a dummy for a picture book called Baby Sings. I thought I'd share what is working for me right now as the mama of a baby with not much time to draw.

After scribbles and a couple rounds of thumbnails, I cut a stack of paper to a good finish size. I folded them in half to find the gutter, numbered the corners, and made sure I had lots of extra sheets cut so I don't have to go hunt down more paper if I need to start a drawing over. (My dog keeps walking by and dripping his drinking water on my paper when I don't pick it up. Then it gets all puckery and icky!)

I have this marvelous drawing surface that my husband made from scrap wood. It's the right height to sit over my legs when I'm on the floor or on the couch. Usually these days I'm sitting on the floor while my little girl plays next to me. It's sturdy and handy!

With my stack of paper, I went through the whole book and quickly and sloppily drew the image onto each page. Then, over time, I work my way forwards and backwards through the whole book tightening up the sketches a little bit each time. This is a good way for me to stay loose and not get too uptight about any one drawing. Flip to a new sheet, fix any proportion or layout issues I see, add a little detail, and move on. I'm getting a lot closer to having the whole book sketched!