Illustration Friday "spent"

Little chick was quite spent after his struggle with the eggshell.

Illustration Friday "racing"

Snails racing...

Drypoint etching

I had the opportunity to take a workshop on drypoint etching last Saturday. This intaglio technique consists of scratching into a plexiglass plate with a stylus, and then pushing ink onto the surface with a small piece of matboard. The ink is then rubbed off with cheese cloth, leaving ink in the grooves. We used Akua intaglio ink which is an awesome ink because it can be cleaned up with water, but it becomes permanent and waterproof on your paper when completely dry. This is a huge improvement over the days of cleaning up with solvents. The plate was then put through an intaglio press along with dampened Reves BFK paper. My image came from a photograph of the stone wall at the end of my street, that I took last winter.

Illustration Friday "Spooky"

I wanted to create a spooky atmosphere for this piece, so I covered my paper with vine charcoal and rubbed it in with a tissue. I used the vine to draw the sketch, then pulled out the light areas with a kneaded eraser. To darken up some of the values and to add details, I used a black charcoal pencil. I like the way this technique allows for such a broad range of values, but also lets me get the fine details that I want.

Illustration Friday "transportation"

These little mice have found a thrilling mode of transportation!

Illustration Friday "beneath"

As I was working on sketches for IF this weekend, I couldn't get away from the concept of "beneath the sea", until it finally turned into "beneath the pier".