Studio Sunday

Greetings, All! How was the Sunday? Mine was a studio Sunday, after a long spell away, so it felt swell, thank you very much. More about that shortly, but First Things First:

I'm happy to announce the winner of my first print contest! Thanks so much to everyone who emailed me, shared post links/links to my blog on Facebook and Twitter -- I saw a nice bump in blog traffic -- and even if temporary, it all helps, right? You just never know where new opportunities come from! Really nice to hear from readers, too :)

The lovely and talented cook and chicken owner behind the Daily Dish is the lucky winner! Congrats! Email me with an address and I'll wing that llama your way!

To get a rich purpley shade, I added black to alizarin* crimson

Ink is so delicious, so luscious.

So today was a return to Maestra's studio and printing press. The way that the geese print has been selling, I decided it would be provident to do another run. I didn't feel right about doing another with the black ink, so this time around I decided to go for a nice eggplant shade, printed on a pleasing off-white brushed Kozo paper. It has the tiniest almost ripple texture to it, and has a nice smoothness. Since I have printed from this block a few times before, it didn't take me too long to get in a flow, after an initial handful of ruined prints before I remembered the particular oddities of the press drum and how it interacts with this specific block.

*Isn't that a great name? Alizarin, alizarin, alizarin. I used to mispronounce it, as I had only seen it written. Think "lizard" and you've got it.

Often interesting to see the difference in how ink takes

It snowed all day. Made the studio feel cozier.

On the reverse side, before the paper has been lifted from the block

new signs in the studio! lots of flying corn.

Glass art mingling with pencils and wire brushes

More and more!

After an hour or so, Maestra popped in with hot tea and we got to catch up a bit. Perfect combination: art, productivity, friendship. Respite.

And now there is a studio filled with drying prints! A great way to start the last week of January. In case you're in the market for some suspicious geese, there are maybe 5 left of the black version. Otherwise, I will list these in a week or so...


And then there was Milk Stout

On an entirely different note, I recently picked up a six pack of Left Hand Brewery's Milk Stout. I'm happy --and quite surprised -- to report that it holds its own against stouts from Founders, which have been at the absolute top of my list ever since a friend brought one of their (pricey) four packs to my house a couple years ago. But LH's stout is rich, nicely balanced and not in the least bitter. Kudos!

The only thing I can complain about is that they don't list their graphic designers anywhere on their site, which I *get* --the brand prettifiers and illustrators are frequently like celebrity ghost writers. BUT. Just saying I'm a fan. 

The packaging did indeed lure me in. Plus Plum beer guy said, Oh yes, that's good."

Can't imagine the cow's happy about all of this.

And then the logo is strong and simple

So that's all for this evening. Hope Everyone is well. Here's to a good week!