A Feather in her Bonnet

14 x 11 Prismacolor Pencil on RIVES BFK Printmaking Paper





Now settled in and back to painting, my focus is on catching up with commissions. That means posting a few more pieces from the past. The painting above is "one of a kind" in my personal collection created a few years ago in a Jeanne Norman Chase colored pencil workshop held in Sarasota, Florida. The workshop took place in her to-die-for studio, a free standing former residence converted to thrill any artist! Pictured above is my piece in a waterbath being prepared for embossing and I am also showing you her lightbox. I don't even own a small lightbox and Jeanne's is huge! This was used to transfer my original drawing onto the Rives paper.

Source material was my photograph of a period dressed manikin taken at the Canton, N.C. Historical Museum.

First the image was completed on the Rives BFK printmaking paper in Prismacolor pencil leaving space for embossing and cropping. Color pencil is a slow process of layering and blending and the painting took the entire first day to complete. The following day, on a piece of matboard, I traced around a pattern of the image of the face and hat increasing the size about one inch. With ongoing instruction from Jeanne, I then cut out the traced image using a very sharp heavy duty X-Acto knife. After a waterbath to soften the paper, the cutout template was gently placed over the original damp painting which was then scored following the shape of the template to get the embossed effect. Magic! There may have been more steps and I'm sure I made notes (where are they?) and I worked on more than one piece, but this one turned out just the way I hoped it would! Jeanne's very aura whispers "Artist"! She is a wonderful instructor and from this workshop, I happily discovered Rives BKF Printmaking Papers! What a find, not only for color pencil art but the strength makes it a great support for the acrylic mixed media/collage pieces I play with from time to time.

There is a link below to Jeanne's website. Go there...see one of her embossed pieces...you will enjoy her gallery, especially "Patterns".