Drawings--upside down and skewed

These are my drawing practice (I'd say "warm-up" if I continued on with something else) that I can do in the middle of the day to help myself stay sane.

These first two were drawn with the reference photo upside down--a most excellent right-brain exercise (even though the whole right/left brain thing has been scientifically debunked).

The next two were essentially blind contour drawings, with pencil, that were then rendered as realistically as possible.

Dan

This is the last color reduction linoprint that I already prepared paper for, but I could always get more paper....

On this one, my goal was directional cutting marks to describe the cool patterns of his face, and I'm pretty pleased with it.  It makes me happy.

My class has moved on to intaglio now, which is a process I adore, but my brain is still in reduction linocut mode (as it's been for the past month) and I'm not sure I'm ready to stop.....

Two more color reduction prints

I think I'm getting the process down.  In this last one, I was going to stop after the dark green layer, because it looked really really cool with just the two greens, but I carved away for the black, and was going to print just one, to see what it looked like, and I'm really glad I did, because the black adds a lot of depth.

This one, my next-to-last one, I'm not so happy with.  The red seems just TOO shocking.  I'd almost like to do this design again, with some other colors, and also carving more texture into it.  Maybe I will.  I thought I was done with these, but maybe I'm not.....

Finished Three-color reduction linoprints

So here are the first two.  I'm planning on doing more.  I think I'll just use two colors, though, because that seems to be all that I can really process with my limited, basically black-and-white brain.

In both of these, the light yellow is too light, and basically doesn't contribute anything to the overall pictures.

And this one, I didn't like the dark that I started out with, so I  only printed five of those, and for the rest, I carved a way a little more, and used a redder ink.  I'm much happier with it this way.

Intertwined Fingers

What a laborious project, and one in which you can't go back and fix something that you did earlier that didn't turn out to be the way you thought it would be....

Here's something like the final one, though I only printed five of them, and I'm thinking I may change this to a lighter color (like red) and then do some more carving, and have the dark areas much smaller for the rest.  But I'm wishing I'd made some different decisions about the white--that those areas were larger. 

Now we're going backwards.  Here are the first two colors.

And here is the first color, the light yellow, and I have no idea why this ended up looking so dark.....  I was really thinking about marks on this whole thing--wanting the marks to show for each color. 

And here's the linoleum block, before I did any cutting.

Pay-it-Forward Art-Making Project for 2014

I promise to make a small work of art for the first five people who comment on this post and say "YES, I want in". A 'like' alone is not enough of a commitment, nor is a comment about thinking Pay It Forward is a great idea.

You must in turn post this as your status update and make something for the first five who comment on your status.

The rules are simple:
– It has to be your work, made by you, and the recipient must receive it before 2014 ends.
– It can be anything art-based: a drawing/illustration or a conceptual work of art, a photograph, a knitted item, cross-stitch, paper maché – or anything in between.

I'm paying this forward thanks to Jack Oudyn.  Yes, you can be on each other's pay it forward lists.

First five, GO!

PS. It doesn't matter if you aren't an artist, try something out, google/ YouTube how to make stuff, step out of those boundaries.