What’s up with that? My “chop”

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, included on his work 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. When I was in grade school, I was very shy and quiet (really, I was, no matter what my adult friends think!). My art teacher at the time, circa 4th grade, began calling me Chris-Anne-the-mum.

So when I needed to design my own chop, I searched for the Chinese kanji character for a chrysanthemum. I found one, abstracted a bit and put it in an irregular circle to suggest handmade. I added my first and last initials in a font matching the feel of the character, and voíla!