Tuesday, February 14

quick lil update

Hello! Happy Valentine's Day or Happy Singles Awareness Day, whichever strikes your fancy.
Keeping myself busy as usual.
I wrote a special note to myself and I'm being good so far about following it. Last Christmas I went nuts and knitted up a storm. The holidays are over now and I still want to knit and knit and knit! It's done two things to me: I'm becoming a yarn snob and it's really taking a toll on the productivity of making prints. So, I've limited my craftiness to the weekends and Stitch 'n Bitch nites. I can get a lot done on the weekends despite having to work. I sewed a case for my gravers. Nice and organized!

Printed this last night:
I think this is the first time I made a print with Linoleum. Sure easy to cut! Hand printed too. I like the way the fibers of the paper texturize the solid areas.

I think I've finally figured out how to marry the desire to knit and the need to make art. For at least one project. Gotta look for a funding source since this is going to be big and expensive. I'll leave this project a surprise. Tell ya later!

Teaching class is going well. I currently have a Color Relief Printmaking class in addition to the regular/black and white/beginning Relief Printmaking class. Color is going well. I split the class into projects: Chine-Colle, Reductive and Multiple block. I'll throw up some photos on here when my students finish their reductive blocks. They're looking pretty good! My students are an ambitious lot, getting very involved with the reductive process. I hope there will be time to get into the multiple block process.

In the regular Relief class, I have two returning students. One is working (very diligently) at getting the hang of showing depth and volume with his cuts. The other student I'm having make a object out of cardboard then create prints to paste onto the cardboard form. We're making flame throwers, yeah!

This year is going to be a busy one. Going to give a wood engraving workshop at WIU in April and then a week later, heading out to Corpus Christi to visit a friend and attend the Oso Bay Biennial at Texas A&M University in Corpus. After that is Frogman's in July for two weeks of amazingness.