GirlMeetsArt

You may have noticed (or maybe not!) a watermark on many of my pieces of work. And maybe (again, maybe not) you’ve wondered what the heck it is.

A few months ago, I took a weekend workshop on printmaking using a hand drill on woodblocks to create imagery. The instructor, master printmaker Steve Prince, showed us a lot of his work, and the pieces included a stamp of something he called a “chop”: essentially, a graphic signature. This got me thinking and I decided to work up my own and apply it as a watermark for digital versions of my work. (more…)

Over the years as I have taken various art workshops, I have learned how to short-circuit my internal editor. You know, that peckish creature inside your head that shoots down any ideas you might have for a new piece of work.

My secret? (more…)

J. Jill, a women’s clothing company, each year holds a “Nature of Compassion” contest to design a T-shirt that will be sold to raise money for homeless women. Each year has a different theme. I decided to use the contest to experiment with some of Illustrator’s tools I hadn’t used much: custom brushes and symbol sets and sprayers.

(more…)

In the early 1980s, while living in Chicago and making my living as a medical writer, I found myself looking for a different way to spend my vacation time. A coworker told me about Oxbow, a summer art colony run by the Art Institute of Chicago.

I had my doubts.

I’d traced comics as a child to make decorations for our windows, but that was the extent of my “artistic” experience. But I decided to take the plunge, despite the wave of second-guessing that swamped me as I stepped onto a yellow school bus with a group of teenagers to make the trek to Oxbow.

(more…)