Betsy's Studio Diary

Tomorrow I'm off to lead a two-day workshop in basic lino-cut printing.  I enjoy leading workshops but usually work myself into a tizzy, (an expression my mother always used) beforehand; rewriting my syllabus, checking my lists, battling self doubt.  This time around has been no different.  I will be leading two additional workshops in the next month so I may be residing in 'tizzy-ville' for the next few weeks.  In addition to tomorrow's lino-cut workshop, I'll also be leading a workshop in one-block reduction woodcuts and another in moku hanga, (the Japanese waterbased printmaking method).  It will be my first time leading a moku hanga workshop and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about it; more nervous than I am normally, that is.  I'll start worrying about that, full-force, on Monday. 
In the midst of all my workshop preparation I've also begun a new print.  I'm planning to work on it during the in-between moments of my upcoming month.  It's a two-block reduction, (my favorite way to print) and right now it's looking rather pink.  I'll need to do a bit of carving before the next layer of color.

In lieu of a sketch, this week I'm posting a funny little collage.  While cleaning out a drawer a few days ago, I came across a stack of paper circles.  I had cut these circles a couple of years ago for a Christmas ornament idea that didn't pan out.  I started rearranging the circles and found this assemblage amusing.

  

There was a nice post about Chuck Close and his work ethic on Brain Pickings this week.  He says a lot of things but this is one of my favorites:

Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.’ And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you’ll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.

That's all for now.