Thursday, May 13, 2010

Pretending to be a graphic artist again



This past week I had to temporarily trade in my clay for the graphics tablet, dust off my rusty rendering skills and catch up on some promised drawings. This little trotting guy is supposed to get transferred to some tiles for my friend Addi Velasquez and her all-china show "Mud Day". I've never used the transfer technique before, so I'm curious to see how they come out.

In the meantime, my youngest son asked if I would print him out so he could color him. I guess he does look a bit like a page from a coloring book. I recently took a class on coloring prayer mandalas, and had a great time coloring intricate horse patterns on one of those Celtic horse circles. Maybe I should print two copies out and color with him!




I also had to design the t-shirts for the Science Olympiad team I help coach. We agreed that we would just use some simple text since time (and money) were short. But the school's mascot, a cartoon Viking, was just too tempting. He needed to become a mad scientist! Don't all fur vests come with pocket protectors and pens these days?

It has been a fun change of pace, and just what I needed to break my obsession with the horse color book. I have never been a great multi-tasker, so it is easy for something to take over my time to the exclusion of all else. These projects had immovable deadlines, so I had to set the manuscript down. Now I am all charged to get back in the studio and work in the mud!