Announcing the 2nd annual Seattle Artist League Portrait Awards! 1st Prize:  $1,000 cash2nd Prize:  $500 SAL Gift Certificate3rd Prize:   $300 SAL Gift CertificateHonorable Mentions: $100 SAL Gift Certificates Guest judge: Catherine Lepp Call ends 3/1/2022 @ midnight PST The Seattle Artist League Portrait Awards aim to encourage artists to focus on and develop the theme of portraiture in their work. The …

The Seattle Artist League Portrait Awards encourage artists to develop the theme of portraiture in their work. The competition celebrates outstanding and innovative work in drawing, painting, printmaking, and mixed media. In this first year, we received 232 submissions from 151 artists. Throughout our selection process, the jury focused on choosing interesting work that engaged the artistic medium to convey the essence of a specific person, or …

Hands do a lot of the talking for us. AJ Power reminded me of this when I dropped in on a recent Comics class. He was inviting students to illustrate the moods and interactions between characters by drawing their hands in gestures. That hit me as one of those obvious yet totally overlooked aspects of …

Monotypes are like a painter’s sketch, run through the press. They’re both more immediate, and more re-workable than any other form of printmaking. Once through the press, you can draw or paint on it, or you can do something else and run it through again. It’s instant, and it’s surprising. Every time I do it …

Bee-Pin by David Dodge Lewis (1997). Vitreograph on paper, edition of 30. Photo courtesy of the Littleton Collection.  Vitreography is a printmaking technique that uses a thick glass matrix instead of the traditional matrices of metal, wood or stone.  Sound interesting? You can make your first vitreograph next week! VitreographyTuesdays 6-10pmStarts Sept 23REGISTER TODAY!

The League is turning three years old. I am proud to say we are growing and thriving both as a school, and as a community of artists. We are an art school of collected individuals, an art school where no one creates artwork in the same way, and every artist has a story. This diversity …

[image_with_animation image_url=”11503″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Many new artists feel they need an original idea for every artwork, but most experienced artists get a lot of creative mileage out of one idea (especially a simple idea), repeated in iterations. Here is a great example: Temple Dogs, a series of 8 by Ralph Kiggell. Each illustration is …

[image_with_animation image_url=”11473″ alignment=”” animation=”Fade In” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] The past few V. Notes have been about drypoints, and I hope you’re not sick of hearing about drypoints, because I still have more to say. Today: Drypoints! I continued to do little experiments with Nikki Barber, and this evening (yesterday by the time you read this) I …

[image_with_animation image_url=”11428″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] From previous V.Note: “Though I thought I should give it a try, I really thought I wouldn’t like drypoint because every time I heard the word “drypoint” I heard nails on a chalkboard, and most of the prints labeled as “drypoints” seemed less rich and subtle than the etchings …