Portraiture :)

Ive always been fascinated with drawing people, especially their portraits. Something about trying to grab a silly quirk, bloodshot eyes, crooked smile or hairy mole that makes me giggle, makes me feel more human, and connected to the people around me. We all have our flaws, our insecurities, our body parts that we aren't the most proud to show off as well as the ones that make us feel beautiful and special. I like to highlight this duality and smash it down on paper as quickly as possible.

Josie

GAGA

Danny 

Dani und Manny

Hedwig 

Someone once told me that artists are the recorders of history...and Im gonna be recording some history today with my $5.00 per portrait booth at the SKI RUN FARMER'S MARKET from 3-8 pm!! :) Sweet Haley Davis drew my portrait last week at her booth but shes tied up with all the celebs today at Edgewood so Im pickin up where she left off. Come see me yall!!

Lavender Regan

On a cool evening last November I walked down to the beach near my apartment to get some air and clear my mind. I had the beach to myself except for some curious geese. The air was still crisp and wet after the slush we'd gotten that morning. I sat there all bundled up for an hour, photographing and sketching the landscape as the sun set over the mountains. There really is no place like home :)

Lavender Regan

11" x 14"

Oil on Canvas 

2014

Sunset at Regan Beach During the Rim Fire

I havent made any prints since I graduated college in 2011, so when I was approached by a friend of mine to TA for her printmaking class at LTCC this quarter I jumped on the opportunity. Printmakers and painters are age old frenemies. Printmakers work and think backwards, always with the end result in mind. There are a myriad of steps to take to make a print that range from working the surface (in my case wood or MDF), choosing paper, ink, bases, press pressure...the list goes on. For a painter like me, who can easily change a painting in half an hour, to work in a medium that requires so much patience and attention to detail is a stretch. In college I often loathed the printing process until I learned a processes that worked for me, namely monotype, woodcut and dry-point/intaglio copper etching.

PIctured above is a monotyped woodblock print. First I hand-painted the woodblock with printmaking ink, making sure to press the ink into the cuts. I printed this woodblock multiple times without adding more ink to create a more subtle ghost image. Then I washed off the woodblock and rolled-up a deep purplish black, registered my paper, and printed that over my ghost. The result is a pale wash of color underneath with a darker pop on top. Im pretty pleased with the results :) Back to the printshop today to try my hand at some more color variation!

What do you think?

Heres a shot of the woodblock I am hand painting before I print it. 

A detail of the woodblock after I printed it.