Painting Rocket

Anyone who knows me, knows I love Border Collies. I admire the intelligence that shines through in their gaze and their graphic markings that make them extra fun to draw and paint.

Recently I was lucky to be commissioned by his doting mama to paint a portrait of Rocket, a handsome western fellow. Lori sent a variety of photos and I chose several to work from. I liked his face in one and the aspen forest background from another.

I worked on a Dick Blick wooden panel–the 6″ x 12″ format seemed especially good for this subject and I knew my Holbein Acryla Gouache paints would look great. I can paint all four edges of this panel to become part of the work of art and they are light and easy to hang, even in a tight space.

As usual, I start with loose shapes and brushwork and work tighter as I home in on the particular details of this animal. I’ve found that the eyes, ears, and mouth convey a dog’s personality most clearly.

Even at this stage I found I needed to dash in some new areas of warmth to set up the complementary contrasts.

Above and below see how the deep edges of the panel become part of the artwork. I keep them more abstract than the main image but large landscape elements carry over.

The finished portrait of Rocket in the Aspen Grove with a lucky ladybug as the final touch.

If you’ve enjoyed this and want to order a portrait of your favorite companion, please get in touch: ashley@ashleywolff.com

Welcome Spring!

After a long Vermont winter we all get a little blue.

We all need to get outside! We need to leave our coats and hats and boots behind. We need to wear sneakers, ride bikes, see some green, roll in the grass, play ball, ride a pony and dig in the garden. Spring fever is a real thing!

I recently visited the kindergartners at Orwell Village School and talked about writing and art, filling your page and adding detail. They must have soaked it all in–like spring sunshine. Today I received this video, made with the help of their wonderful teacher Josh Martin:

ttps://spark.adobe.com/video/64dt3EAOZWEpqhttps://spark.adobe.com/video/64dt3EAOZWEpq

If this doesn’t get your spring juices flowing, nothing will!

ENJOY!

Making my ‘Rufus in the Tall Grass’ print, with the help of three experts.

I’ve been admiring the work of printmakers since I was a small girl and this summer’s project emulates three people whose work has influenced me. I’ve been collecting samples of the work of Andrea Lauren lately. She does small, two color prints using two separate blocks.

Andrea uses two separate blocks and prints one over the other.

You could cut a block into more pieces as well and ink each piece separately. That’s what Woody Jackson did early in his career when he started cutting up zinc etching plates, inking each piece, and putting them back together like puzzles before printing.

I’ve loved Mary Azarian’s work since I was a teenager. Her hand-colored woodcuts of Vermont scenes and her illustrated books influenced my illustration work enormously.

I am teaching at Hollins University again this summer-this time I designed a course called Printmaking for Illustration. To make a sample for my students I used all three of my printmaking idols as inspiration.

My new puppy Rufus has a foxy look similar to Andrea’s print, so I chose one of the dozens of reference photos I have and started designing my own two color linocut.

I decided to use one block and cut it apart into two pieces-Woody Jackson style-right around Rufus. That made getting perfect registration a breeze.

 

I start by coating the “inside” cut-out of Rufus in black ink with a rubber brayer.

Then I mixed a yellow and a dark green and used them both to ink the grasses on the “outside” block. Sometimes the two colors mixed on the brayer, but I didn’t care-I wanted each print to be one of a kind.

I placed both parts of the inked up block into a custom cut cardboard jig, or frame, to hold them steady, then laid my paper on top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To make a print I’m merely rubbing the back of the paper firmly with an ordinary wooden spoon. I keep it fairly parallel to the paper so that it presses evenly and doesn’t rip this delicate sheet.

I made a small edition of 20 prints using 2 colors of oil based ink.

When these are dry I’ll hand color each one with watercolors, making them truly one of a kind, just like Mary Azarian does.

Three printmakers-four counting me-all different but with so much in common!

It’s Halloween Season

Having a border collie as my alter ego has always been useful and fun, but never more so that at Halloween. All three of my dogs have been black and white, though Tula had a little brown too.

This color scheme lends itself so beautifully to the imagery of this season.

 

And blends beautifully with pumpkin-orange.

Even in disguise, we’ll always recognize that tail!

Even an alter ego needs her own familiar–a cat just won’t do, so an owl it is!

Happy Halloween from Ashley, Pumpkin, Lucy, Tula and the owls

Vote~SkaDaMo2014

Every activity in everyday life is more fun if a Border Collie is doing it.

That includes exercising your franchise as an American voter, tomorrow November 4, 2014

#SkaDaMo2014

Life with Dogs: Part 10-Tula

Tula came to me as a scared, skinny runaway from Chico, CA, age unknown.

She’d recently given birth, had a dry, raggedy coat and kept her tail permanently tucked between her legs.

She refused to jump into a car, but broke three (empty) bowls by jumping onto the kitchen counter in search of food to filch.

She’d had a hard life to that point.

I took her to Holly Park on her first day in Bernal Heights so she could get  a view of her new neighborhood.

Tula never met another dog she didn’t like, or at least tolerate. I saw her growl only a few times, and she had to be taught how to bark again.

Though she always kept an eye on me, She liked and tolerated children of all ages too.

Tula got around.

As my black and white shadow, she traveled from California to points all over the East Coast.

On the Pacific Coast at The Sea Ranch,

At the Brooklyn Bridge with Illustrator Paul O Zelinsky.

And on top of Vermont’s Mt Abraham with Sabin Russell.

 Tula’s favorite spot was belly deep in some body of water.

but she was happy in all weather as long as I was there too.

After any encounter with moisture, she would joyfully roll in grass or sand or the dusty driveway.

Tula was the sweetest dog I’ve ever had and she will be profoundly missed.

Life with Dogs-Part 8: We Love Lucy

Every kid needs a pet.

I knew I was lucky to grow up with dogs and wanted the same for my boys. Lucy made our family complete.

Even though I insisted we get a female dog so there’d be another b**** in our House of Boyz, Lucy had all the skills they admired.

She was good at messing around in boats,

She had the patience to fish,

She loved to snorkel,

and most important, she had game.

She never tired of the game of catch-of trying to catch the baseball, and of chasing it down when it got away.

Lucy was becoming an excellent new muse.

If you enjoyed this post, please like Ashley Wolff Art on Facebook, visit my webpage here, my Etsy shop, or follow the blog by hitting the “follow blog” button at the top of the sidebar. 

Life With Dogs-Part 2: Adopting a Dog as my Alter Ego

I was Crazy about Pumpkin.

She was my first Border Collie and I was thrilled with her intelligence and empathy. She became my constant companion. I was still an art student when I got her and she went to all my classes with me.

She used to cuddle by tucking her head up under my chin.

 

I loved to draw her.

Soon I was anthropomorphizing her-I couldn’t help myself.

It was uncanny how she loved to do all the same things I did.

Pumpkin traveled the world for close to a year. She shared a picnic at Hanging Rock with a koala in Australia.

She rode a camel on the Great Wall of China.

And caught a flounder in Istanbul, Turkey.

Later she even got pregnant,

Meanwhile, over in Bookland, Pumpkin began appearing in my children’s books from the very beginning.

Here we are making snow angels in A Year of Birds. I am still a carefree child, making Sabin do all the work as my father.

In my next post I will reveal how Pumpkin changed my life.

If you enjoyed this post, please like Ashley Wolff Art on Facebook, visit my webpage here, my Etsy shop, or follow the blog by hitting the “follow blog” button at the top of the sidebar. 

 

Making my own Advent Calendar~Part 2

I grew up with “Sweet” paper Advent Calendars like this one

The numbered openings are scattered all over, and the pictures outside bore no relation to what was underneath the perforated squares.

You got a lot of glitter outside, and dopey illustrations of stars, bells and candles inside the windows.

This annoyed me as a child. I already craved storytelling and wanted the outside and the inside to add up to something greater.

Nowadays, cool DIY Advent Calendars are all the rage. Many have candy and/or REAL gifts in them.

But that is now. Back in 1986 I was thinking strictly 2-D, so I decided to make my own paper calendar. It was going to be fun to look at AND tell a story.

I grew up in a cozy neighborhood in town, in a modern-looking, chalet style house designed by my parents. But my child alter-ego lived in a pale yellow farm house somewhere out in the country.

I needed at least 24 windows and doors on my imaginary house and barn in order to create the world within the calendar.

I included characters from my three, published picture books:

Nutkin, the marmalade cat from Only The Cat Saw

Ellie, the little girl from A Year of Birds and A Year of Beasts, and her Border Collie Pumpkin

And later, I copied parts of my old calendar into books created far into the future like When Lucy Goes Out Walking!

I wanted the picture you saw when you opened the door or window to make sense and tell a little bit more about this home and family.

So when you open doors 1, 10 and 18, you see into the front hall, the kitchen and the back hall.

The only window that did not fall within a real opening is in the woodpile.

but when you open it, the scene inside is still real to the location, even if the mice are enormous next to the cat!

Happy Advent!

Though this calendar is out of print, I still have a stash and am selling them here.

If you enjoyed this post, please like Ashley Wolff Art on Facebook, visit my webpage here, my Etsy shop, or follow the blog by hitting the “follow blog” button at the top of the sidebar. 

Saint Nicholas and Santa

My Dad was raised in Germany and always celebrated St. Nicholas Day on December 6th.

I made him this card, back when we had a German Shepherd named Thumper, and before I fell in love with Border Collies.

The European tradition he grew up with is for children to put out their shoes on the night of December 5th and for St Nicholas to leave a small gift in them overnight.

As children my sister and I did not put our own shoes out, but we would put a gift into one of our daddy’s big shoes.

He loved candy, so it was easy to please him. KitKat Bars were his favorites.

But my sister and I believed in Santa Claus: the belly, the beard, the boots and the red hat.

In 1986, I visited China. In a street stall in Beijing I bought a red satin hat trimmed with sequins and rabbit fur.  It looked just like Santa’s hat, only exotic.

Here is how it appeared in a postcard I painted while still in China.

Nowadays I keep it safely stored for most of the year, but bring it out at Christmastime and wear it pretty much non-stop for a few weeks, especially to paint in.

Today a bronze bust of Klaus as a child is wearing the hat.

Happy St. Nicholas Day, Klaus!

If you enjoyed this post, please like Ashley Wolff Art on Facebook, visit my webpage here, my Etsy shop, or follow the blog by hitting the “follow blog” button at the top of the sidebar. 

Thanks.