Hard at work

I so enjoyed the process of hand-painting this plate I made a photo record of it. The mezzotint was a long and difficult challenge, and when I brought it as far as I could in black and white I realized that it would probably work better in color. I am very pleased with this girl who looks like someone from the Italian Renaissance! I'm calling this print "Genoa."

Good Times

Been having a good time this past weekend with family. Now it's back to reality, and I think mezzotint "C" will be the one I print for the International Mezzotint Society's 2014 Exchange.

By the way, my face in the above panorama (I have the camera) got sort of squashed so it's not the real me. But you get the idea of the party that was going on in my studio!!

Thursday Jaunt

Thursday is my day to drive over to spend the morning with my parents. The drive is made fun, and easy thanks to my new KIA, which I have named "Colonel Mustard" because that is "his" color. My Dad wondered whether I'd be getting a big hot dog to put on top! I'm holding a real sunflower from Bruce's garden out back.

Mom and Dad are doing well. We always enjoy our visiting and Mom marked her calendar for next week's family arrivals. Fun times ahead!

Printing away

It's always better to print a plate when it's "new" to me, before I sort of fall out of love with it. And I also pulled out a small plate I made a year ago and put away because I was somehow dissatisfied with it. I printed it with the successful mixture of ink I just made (DS Preferred Black and a dash of Easy Wipe) and it looked fine, so I added it to the group.

It's always a good day when I can spend it in my beautiful studio!

Inaugural Post, Best of Badger

These are small mezzotints I have been working on this summer. Having conjured up a Pole Rocker from instructions given out by a fellow International Mezzotint Society artist, I've been rocking away and challenging myself to create mezzotints in the classic style. And it is definitely a challenge when you've scraped off all the black and are "dancing" in the grays. Today I will start the serious printing.