"Rescue"

Illustration Friday 'Rescue"

We've had some beautiful weather here for the past couple weeks. In the last ten days, I ended up visiting a friend and hanging out at her pool, spending time at the ocean visiting family, celebrating my 30th wedding anniversary with a drive up to Maine, as well as a day at one of my favorite lakes.

 I guess I've been trying to squeeze it all in before my summer vacation comes to an end. It's time to exchange my summer brain for my back-to-work brain! There's only one more week before the students arrive for their first day, so I'll be back in the building for a few days this week getting ready for the new school year.

Here's a photo of the Portland Head Light that I took last week on the coast of Maine.

California Vineyards

I just finished a new block print inspired by my trip to California last month. I'm excited to be mailing off prints this week to my friends who traveled with me. I'll post the process of making a multi-colored reduction block print so anyone stopping by can understand the various steps of this technique.

Here's the "easy-cut" block with the drawing on it. I usually outline everything with a black Sharpee marker first, so all the details stand out.

I also use a template to mark each layer so they will match up when I print the subsequent colors.

Here is the first color, printed by hand, on Rives Light paper using Akua inks. 

Layer 2 is a blend of two colors that make up the sky and some of the brown background. You can see the areas that are cut away so the first color shows through.

Layer 3--- green and gray

Layer 4---more green

Final Layer--the inked plate

The finished design---"Vineyard View"

Maybe I should open up that bottle of wine I brought back from California, to celebrate!

Fresh 2

Another view of the freshly baked pie in full color. This is the final version I put on my dad's birthday card. We had a fun time celebrating his 85th birthday yesterday!

"Fresh"

Fresh blueberry pie!

My favorite blueberries were the wild ones we used to pick when I was a child. We did a lot of camping and hiking back then, and we'd find blueberry bushes along the trails. From one campground, we would paddle out to "Blueberry Island" and pick berries right from the canoe. Then my dad would make pancakes for us, speckled with those tiny, sweet berries.

Happy 85th Birthday Dad!

"Hybrid" Illustration Friday

 Hybrid was a tricky word---I even looked up the definition just to make sure my idea was within the right ball park (offspring of genetically differing parents).

This is the drawing I came up with---maybe I should of gone crazier with the plant, but I like the little girl and her green crocs.