Cross Pollination

8x10 inches

graphite and colored pencil 

Mariah, for Julia Kay's Portrait Party

It has been cold, crazy cold in our neck of the woods, and we ended up not going out for my birthday, or New Year's Eve, though we did venture out for dinner last night.  All this inside time has inspired me to clean and organize upstairs in the studio, and try to motivate myself to get back into painting. Lately all I seem to be inclined to do is cut and paste and think about making new papers to use for more cutting and pasting, which is all well and good. It's just that I hate to get too far away from drawing and painting.  Anyway, today I was supposed to help out at a local gallery, and I knew I needed to bring along something small and portable, so I decided to do another portrait for Julia Kay's Portrait Party, a Flickr group that has recently started an auxiliary group on Facebook.  

I've been creating textured papers for my collage work, and got the brainstorm that I might be able to use rubbing plates, the sort quilters use for designing fabrics, as background texture in drawing.  If you enlarge the drawing, you'll see different textures in the dark passages, as well as in the peach and white area to the right of her head.  If I had used heavier paper I might have actually collaged on some textured areas.  This drawing is on thin sketchbook paper, so I didn't push my luck.  I like the effect well enough that I may do a little series and see what I can do with this technique.