My etching class ended last night. I was able to pull one more print that I’m almost happy with, but will now be renting space at the Atlanta Printmaker’s Studio in order to study the craft and practice more. In the meantime, here is last night’s progress on the hummingbird piece. The drawing looks a little labored due to my having to redraw through the hard ground and having to reapply and redraw the soft ground details as well, and in this printing, I left a fair amount of ink on the plate for more plate tone….
My instructor, Kathy Garrou, brought in a book done completely in engraving! How crazy that? It’s a GORGEOUS book called TRICK OF THE TALE, written by John and Caitlin Matthews and illustrated by Tomislav Tomic. This book is published by Candlewick Press, who is ironically the publisher of my next book, WHITE WATER~ I can’t wait to add this book to my collection.
From the publisher: Enter (carefully) the world of the tricksters, those wily creatures who lie their way out of trouble, cheat when they get a chance, and devise elaborate tricks to get what they want — with delightfully unpredictable results. This truly diverse, elegantly illustrated collection follows such clever characters as Anansi, Coyote, Brer Rabbit, and others who play a role in a multicultural array of storytelling traditions, from African to Inuit to European, Tibetan to Native American to Japanese. Celebrate the slyest trickster tales from around the world in a lavish volume that gives a well-loved story tradition its rightful due.
The original paintings for OUR CHILDREN CAN SOAR has left Cleveland and is now on exhibit at the Weiss Center in Jew Jersey. The art will be on display from March 11-April 7.
Gallery hours:
11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.,
Monday through Friday.
Admission is free
Scheduled Events
All events take place in the Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery, Hepburn Hall Rm. 323
2039 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07302
Opening Reception featuring James Ransome
5:00 – 7:00 p.m. on
Thursday, March 11,
Features an address by James Ransome, one of the book’s 13 illustrators. (Copies of the books autographed by all the book’s 13 artists will be available for silent auction at the opening reception on March 11.)
Eric Velasquez
5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 16, 2010
Pat Cummings
5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 31, 2010
My etching class is almost over. I was only able to finish one print, but am hoping to be able to make a bit more progress on this second one before class ends. Here’s the first proof. Unfortunately the first attempt at etching the lines on this were botched. The acid didn’t bite through. I had to reapply the hard ground and redraw the lines then drop it back in the acid bath. The second time though, the lines etched a bit too much. The same thing happened when drawing the background in soft ground. I had to reapply and redraw and some of the lines still didn’t bite through I’ll post the updates as they come along.
I woke to outstanding news this morning. OUR CHILDREN CAN SOAR has won an Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Children!
Congrats to Michelle Cook and all of the artists who contributed to this wonderful project!
You can see a list of all of the award winners here:
Enjoy this video of Kadir Nelson discussing his paintings for Coca-Cola. Such beautiful work-it’s Kadir Nelson (whose work is ridiculously beautiful and inspiring) with a touch of Aaron Douglas (whose work I adore).
I finally finished my etching, “Butterfly Girl”.
You can purchase one of the ten prints in my etsy shop for $75.
$50 from each sale will go directly to the American Red Cross.
I’m in “get ‘er done” mode these days with final art for my next book, WHITE WATER (Candlewick), dummies for upcoming books, a couple of school visits and some of my personal work, but a great virtual opportunity has come down the pipeline via my interview with The Brown Bookshelf’s 28 Days Later.
Stay tuned in the next few days for a fun experiment on my Youtube Channel…
Today is the release day for Zetta Elliott’s A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT (encore edition). Since I can’t be there (NYC) to help celebrate her at the launch party, I will have a cupcake here in her honor. A little background on the book, Zetta self-published AWAM in 2009 under her own Rosetta Press through Amazon’s self-publishing program. After selling over 500 copies on her own, she was approached by Amazon’s publishing company, Amazon Encore, to redesign and package the book and be sold through all Amazon avenues, Kindle, paperback, etc. As you may already know, I had the honor of illustrating Zetta’s first picturebook, BIRD, and helped design the original cover for AWAM (I say “helped”, because Zetta supplied the vision and pictures for the original cover). It has been a pleasure watching this book grow and I am looking forward to seeing how far Zetta soars~
Congrats Z.
See the AWAM blog to keep up with all the happenings. For more information on Zetta and her books visit her website at www.zettaelliott.com, where you can also access her film and writing blog Fledgling.
I’ll post the updates as they come along.
