Goya
Maya Bloch
Kathe Kollwitz
Guardians and angels are on my mind of late, and what it means to be a guardian. I'm one of my daughter Lisbeth's legal guardians, and she has many other sorts of guardians, celestial and terrestial. So do I. How do they show up? What do they look like? These are the thoughts I'm taking with me to the studio today...
This is the start of a new series of drawings of and about my daughter Lisbeth. I've wanted to do this series for a very long time, and I finally feel emotionally ready. Ever since I took this photo of Lisbeth in the ER last fall I have felt compelled to draw it. I've also been wanting to try working with acrylics and pastels on primed canvas instead of paper, so this week I bought some raw canvas and tacked it to the new homosote panels lining one wall of my studio, and gessoed it. I drew the image in first with charcoal, then worked into the drawing with acrylics and pastels, back and forth, back and forth. It's a new surface, with new challenges: I'm just getting used to it, and I'm enjoying it so far. I plan to work the hummingbirds into the piece this afternoon, either on this drawing of Lisbeth, or on smaller separate canvases that will circle this piece, like little angels...
My daughter Lisbeth will be joining me in my studio on Monday mornings to "do art." Today she was not in the mood to make art, but wanted me to draw her. She sat for about half an hour. I have made several portraits of Lisbeth over the years. It's an intense experience, because she is so intense, and our bond and joint history is so intense. In a thirty minute period, Lisbeth can rapidly vacillate between giddiness, anxiety, anger, sadness...it's all there.
Printed on Rives BFK gray, this created a pale steel gray image.
Preparing another slab of pink ink to roll on my second copper plate, my image of Lisbeth's eyes...
Which I printed over the gray image, and again by itself on the lower half of the page.
Some graphite drawing on the eyes at the top of the page...
Prints soaking, getting ready for another run through the press...
A pink overlay of Lisbeth's eyes on the indigo blue print.
Men at work.
Nine new framed mandalas are for sale in Lisbeth's Etsy shop: Frog Queen, Glad Giants, Lobster Moon, Flaming Oak, Bat Song, Four of Acorns, Fish and Wishbones, Beach Rose and Bleeding Hearts, and Candlelight. All on soft shades of earth toned archival colored paper. 
Mother and Daughter
I've been up to my knees in snowflakes - paper ones and real ones! Here are some of my daughter Lisbeth's shirts, hanging in the big pine tree out back and on the clothesline, waiting to be photographed, yesterday and today. Today was not a day for fingerless gloves - we have a wicked wind chill happening here in Maine, and I nearly got frostbite taking these pics!!! Lisbeth's shop is doing well! We've had 22 sales already! I am so pleased, and so is Lisbeth. 
And look what came in the mail this afternoon! My two fabric swatches from Spoonflower! These are designs that I sent in about a week ago. I am very excited! Infinite fabric possibilities!! I just sent in single mandalas for these sample swatches, but Spoonflower can do repeats and patterns - I can make layers of them in photoshop with some opaque and some transparent - they can over lap - I can take fragments of the mandalas and play with those - I can play with scale....agh! So many ideas!!!! But to start, I like the single image. This will make great throw pillows, table napkins, QUILT SQUARES! Imagine a quilt made with all different Lisbeth mandalas, in all different colors!!!!! Or, in a more subtle monochromatic color scheme! Ahhhhh, fun times ahead...
Playing with color combos in Photoshop, designing some cards for Lisbeth's Etsy shop, Brain Storm Studio. ENDLESS possibilities. A bit overwhelming! So I just started with some of my favorite colors...
