printing and painting

We've been having some fun around here in the printing and painting department these pre-Christmas days.  There was our first try at block printing, using soft-kut blocks and printing up some cards... Claire's print looks kind of like Chinese writing.  Or at least it does to me and my untrained-in-the-way-of-foreign-languages eyes.

She also worked on several canvases for gifting.... some were just crayon and/or pencil on the canvas, others were painted, some were a combination~  she likes to mix up her media.

And then.  Then I got to spend a few hours yesterday morning all by myself  (by which I really only mean I was able to remove my mama hat for a bit) at a friend's studio screen printing some shirts with her lovely and fabulous designs.  She is a designer, a fabric artist, an author with a new book coming out, and surely many other things as well.  She so kindly hosted drop-in screen printing hours at her Asheville studio this week in order to raise money for Girls on the Run.  I feel like I'm supposed to say that I made lots of gifts.  And I did make a few.  But I also made several for myself.  I had a hard time calling it quits, but lunch and work and other responsibilities were calling, so I kinda had to.

Now a bunch of my old and tired and worn thrift store t-shirts are pretty dang exciting!  There's a bicycle, a little whale family, a lovely old barn....... some of the to-be-gifted garments are donned with insects and birds, a medical diagram of the human heart, a rooster (a hot pink rooster that is, for Claire), and something else for papa that I won't mention yet in case he happens to stop by and read this in the days between now and said gift's journey to his stocking.

Me, I'll be wearing my new shirts a lot.  A LOT.  And looking forward to my next go 'round with the screen-printing process, for sure.  Thanks, Jen!