Philbin Beach watercolor

A quick watercolor sketch from Philbin Beach on Martha's Vineyard, done in my watercolor sketchbook (approximately 6" by 4 1/2").

Fish & Lilypads

An experiment with a drawing I scanned out of my Moleskine sketchbook.

Monoprinting continued

I've continued experimenting with monoprinting. I received a suggestion to soak the paper in water before trying the print transfer, so I tried that for this print. It definitely helped in that a lot of the detail and the darkness of the ink and paint transferred much better. The paper started sticking to the glass a bit too much, causing some of the paper to pull apart a little bit when I pulled the print up, but I think that's just because it wasn't a heavy enough paper to hold together once it was soaked in the water (it became a little too pulpy in some patches). I still haven't gotten the hang of painting/drawing on glass yet, but I'm getting a better handle on the whole process.

Monoprinting experiments

This weekend Jeff and I were trying out some monoprinting techniques. I was using a photo of Andrew Bird from Flickr for reference, making a pencil sketch of that photo to work from.


This was the sketch I made for reference.


My first attempt was done using raw umber oil paint. Not bad for a first try - I was able to get some interesting textures from wiping the oil paint with a paper towel after I mixed it with some turpenoid.


For my second print I used oil based printing ink. Like the first one, there are some parts of it I like, but overall it's more of a learning piece. I think the printing ink is better used for block printing because a lot of the details that were painted on the glass didn't transfer that well. Even though the ink was oil based, it still dried too fast.


I went back to using oil paint for the third print, but I think I used too much turpenoid because it came out much lighter than I wanted. I do like the splatters and the areas where the paint and turps bled.

I definitely want to play around with this process more until I can get it to a point where I feel like I can control the outcome of the prints better. I really like the texture that the transfer process brings out. Once these prints are drier I'm planning to scan them and try combining the prints with some digital painting. These are just photos of the prints. They were all done on 11" x 14" paper.

Hawaiian Hills and Valley

A watercolor sketch based on a photo of Hawaii from a 1970's National Geographic.

Laundry Day

Based on a photo of a street in Italy from a 1970's National Geographic.

Sketchbook Pages

Here are a few pages from my sketchbook. I was playing around with acrylic paint, and a few collage elements on the first two pictures.

Gallery R Show

Last Thursday, on May 21, my class had the opening reception at Gallery R for our thesis show. The show exhibited work that was by our students from our twelve weeks of student teaching, in addition to a piece of work by each of our cooperating teachers and one piece of our own from the past year. The opening was packed with people and it was a great success. The show will be up at Gallery R until June 6. Here are some photos of the work by my students. My two student teaching placements involved high school and then first through fifth grade.









And just a reminder that prints of Pirate Queen are available right here.