One More Night of Workshop

A very busy week so far.  Just had an intense trip to NYC, and had a bunch of stuff to do with watching my parents' house while they were away, and my new job finally began this week with a daily series of trainings, plus tonight was my last scheduled meeting of my summer woodcut class in Belmar.  Could I pull it all off?  The trainings are all in Hamilton, NJ, which (for those who are not from this area) is literally on the other side of the state from everything else mentioned above.  Luckily today is the shortest training day by schedule, so I was home around 4:30- plenty of time to get to the next stop.  I had started loading stuff last night, so I only had few things to take to the car this afternoon.

The building was kind of crowded today, with a big meeting going on when I arrived, and later a writer's group meeting as well.  And all 6 of my students were there, and all ready to work.  

Marisa, the one student who wasn't ready to print last time was anxious to check out how her turtle block had come out.  In previous meetings I had talked about the possibilities of colored papers and inks, and she jumped at that opportunity.  First she tried straight green ink on a deep blue paper (above), then lightened the ink a little with some yellow and printed it on a white Japanese paper.  (below, where the ink can be seen through the thin paper)  The class enjoyed her complex design, and she seemed satisfied with the results, especially when I pointed out colors could be seen through the Japanese paper.

Everyone else was on their second blocks from the start.  Dave's image of a fluke was executed quickly, but worked.  (Below, inking)

Dave and Megan both chose to go with black oil ink, but tried a variety of papers.  Below are some examples of his fluke print, and her whale prints, including one chin colle color piece.

There were other things I didn't get a chance to take photos of.  In some ways the evening reminded me of the last night of the Print Blitz I went to down in Texas- with all the high school students working deep into the night to take advantage of their last night in the studio.  My students were all older, but no less interested in prints.  Jill reclaimed the piece she left behind last week and cleaned it up before printing it in multiple colors.  Donna completed and printed a second cat print, on multiple types of paper.  And Patrick cranked out a small print.  

Some have expressed an interest in continuing with woodcuts.  Don't know exactly what the future holds, but it won't be next week.  Glad this was a success.