One of the assignments for Jay Harriman's Intro to Polyester Lithography was for each student to create a self-portrait in the same size format, and we will print our collective prints onto sheets to create a group portrait.

For mine, I wanted to capture the many styles I work in, so I gridded my face and would apply mono-lineweight to some areas, halftones to others, realistic ball-point pen as well as a loose wash using carbon black acrylic paint.

The final effect is definitely kind of silly and maybe a little amateur-ish.

Below you can see an in-progress group portrait with four of the 7 artists having printed:

For years I have admired the work of Cincinnati artist Caroline Williams. Per pen-and-ink drawings as well as her engravings helped capture a Cincinnati transforming during the mid-twentieth century.

For this polyester litho plate I used a Bic ballpoint pen to create very small, gestural marks.

 

 I started taking a polyester lithography class at Tigerlily Press. So for the class I drew this scene inspired by our Yosemite wedding many years ago:

The drawing was made with Sharpie on a polyester plate — the marker will attract ink while the wet polyester will not accept ink during the printing process.

Ugh, so I did some test prints and I think I was in a crabby mood. I started messing up, got in the weeds and went home to sulk. First print was okay, second some ghost fingerprints emerged, then the third print was really bad (I used a gel toothpaste to clean the plate and worried I messed up the image).

Capping off my trip to Michigan with a "crepuscule" or "silhouette" style drawing inspired by a morning walk along the Les Chenaux shoreline of Cedarville's bay. It was one of those Monet type of mornings.

I drew this with fellow artists Anissa Pulcheon and Wesley Ericson while we were waiting for our East Walnut Hills mural wall to dry from morning fog so we could start a day of mural painting.

I created an ink foreground separately from a graphite sky — I merged them in Photoshop to simulate how I might create a watercolor mono print with the design.

 

The beginning of October found me taking a short vacation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula — enjoying the great northern woods.

 

For my first Inktober drawing I created an overlapping motif of mushrooms that I imported and turned into this pattern repeat:

 

I'm having a bit of an odd year. I am fortunate to have spent 2020 focusing on my health and hopefully making some corrections to my approach in life where I take better care of myself as a creative and hopefully find more ways to balance life and work, perhaps earning more and working less (not 50-80 hour weeks, 7 days a week, 365). Well, life had other plans and it's been a busy year where I'm working a lot without a lot of profitability! So here's hoping 2022 will be better!

This year I was planning a series of bird illustrations based upon the idea of having a personal "big year" where I try to identify as many birds as I can, adding to the current birds I am aware of.

In January, I had the fortune to observe a lot of new migrating water birds at lake in Newtown called Lake Barber. I spotted flocks of these adorable American Coots.

For day 1 of Inktober I felt it might be nice to capitalize on this previous prompt and finally draw that Coot! Well, I was aiming for Audubon quality, but I think I misplaced my eye too far into the center of the head and it looks a bit more Edward Gorey!