Arctic Mark in Stanley Park

I don't know about art, but...

...I know what I like, and what I like is: sled dogs!! This is a photo I took of my very first sketch since my arrival here 21 months ago in this town of world-reknowned artists. I attended my first printmaking class last Tuesday, April 3 at the Craft Shop, and had the most amazing time! I went with Tanya and Martin, the new kids in town, and we were led through the first stages of printmaking mostly by Susie Malgokak with some help from Elsie Klengenberg (creator of my t-shirt). There were several other women at the class as well, all of whom had more art experience and talent in one of their little fingers than I have in my entire body. But I had a blast anyway. I decided to use my photo from a year ago, April 2006, as the basis for my sketch. The photo is included in my post from April 9, 2007 so you can compare the original photo with my sketch. You can see I took quite a bit of "artistic licence" in adapting the photo as the basis for my first attempt at printmaking. It's astonishing (and a bit frustrating) that what you see here is really no more advanced than any of the many cartoons and doodles I did in Grade 7 on the inside covers of school textbooks. Hard to believe that I actually taught a Grade 10 Art class in my first semester of teaching, isn't it? Anyway, technical proficiency be damned, I love my print, and I can't wait for the next stage at the next class. You can see there the first sheet of mylar taped over the sketch, and I had to cut out the outlines of the two dogs first. Not sure what comes next, but I will display the various stages of my print here for all to see. That's a promise, not a threat :)